Things are going pretty well for me right now:) Finished classes for the year, and only have 3 exams to go, so soon I'll have one less thing to worry about (and be able to feel less guilty about spending so much time training:P).
The Around the Bay in a Day bike ride was last Sunday. I rose at 4am to get all my gear in order, but couldn't find anything to eat or to take with me. 'Not to worry' I figured, because I'd had a giinormous meal the night before.
Since the ride was starting at 6am on a Sunday morning, public transport really wasn't an option, and although my friend offered to drive me, I decided I'd prefer to ride. I professed a desire to do 300km in the day, which was received with less ridicule than I'd expected:P I guess when we were going to be doing 210k, another 90k didn't sound like too much more.
The ride in was pretty uneventful, but riding up Alexander Avenue, I was met with an awesome sight: thousands of riders all with lights a'flashing. In the sullen darkness, it looked magical, and I knew that it would be a moment I'd keep in the treasure trove of memory for some time to come.
After several confused phone conversations, I managed to find my friend, James, who was driving in. We weren't really sure which pace group to go with, but ended up deciding to stick with the 30-34kph group and see how we felt. A few moments after we'd found each other, the signal went off, and 6000 riders clipped into their pedals (god I love that sound!).
It was fairly hairy at the start, as we had to stop at numerous red lights that only came to our attention when the riders in front yelled out 'stopping!'. A few images that stuck in my head from the first two km were one poor guy with a flat tyre after about 500m (a sight that would be repeated many a time) and an incoherent, drunk raving patron outside the front of a brothel who swore at us as we went past.
Eventually we got onto Beach Rd and started to get into a decent groove. I really wasn't approaching the ride in the right way. We were going 28kph, and I was quietly aiming for a 7hr finish, so every time a rider went past, I'd surge out and latch onto them, not stopping until we'd reached the next group. James found it a bit comical, and I promised several times that I'd stop, only to do it again on the next hill:P About 30k in, quite close to Mordialloc, my bike pump, which I'd wedged into the strap on my seat bag, decided to detach itself and flew off into the wheel of the following rider. Luckily it didn't cause any accidents, but I felt quite sheepish! And despite being run over by at least 10 people, it still appeared to be completely fine:) I'm glad I paid what at the time seemed like an exorbitant amount of money!
We got back on the road and were actually kind of pleased that we'd taken that unscheduled stop, because the pack we joined was setting a much nicer pace:) Riding with so many people didn't seem to make that much of a difference. It was quite windy, but despite being tucked in behind at least 10 people, I still felt like I was working pretty hard. How hard became evident after James became the aggressive one and suggested we make a surge for the next group. The gap was about 200m, and after making up about 100m, I was gasping for air and wondering whether I'd be able to keep up the effort. We eventually caught on to them, but it was pretty evident that James was handling the pace a lot better than me.
Another 15km went on, steady now, not trying to overtake and then we got to the first of the three big climbs in the ride. I think it was around Portsea, and I was really dreading it, because last time I'd ridden down this route, it had reduced me to a crawl. I seemed to handle it a lot better than last time though, passing quite a few people, even though my quads were starting to feel the strain. A little respite and then another climb started up to Mt Eliza. This time, I was just concentrating on not falling behind the person in front of me. James was still looking very strong, and he wasn't keen on stopping at the rest stop, so we pressed on.
Try as I might, I couldn't keep a good pace up after that climb. I felt like I had no power left in my legs, and although we were still going 25kph, lots of people were passing us. When we hit the bottom of Mt Martha, things really got bad. I just couldn't keep up with James up the hill, and spun in my granny gear, while he and hundreds of other people moved off into the distance. At that point, I was dying for a leak and knew that I really needed to stop, so I hopped off the bike, went behind the bushes and had a good swig on the drink bottle. I felt a little better after that, but I no longer had 30kph in my legs and felt bad for holding James back. It was getting to the point where I was considering giving up, but I just reiterated to myself the platitude that I've heard people give during marathons: "in a (ride) this long, there are gonna be some good patches and some bad patches, you just have to keep going". So I fought it out, managing another 20km before really hitting the wall, and having trouble going 20kph.
Serendipitously, just at that moment, we were going past an Aldi, so I told James I was going in and that he could keep going if he wanted (but in a cursory fashion, because I was hoping he wouldn't:P). Half a pack of Dutch apple biscuits and a packet of chips later, and I was feeling a bit better. One of our friends called a short time after we started riding again, and said he was waiting at the ferry queue, so with 20k to go til Sorrento, James started picking up the pace. He dropped me for a while, but as the biscuits started to be torn apart and hydrolysed by my digestive system, my legs started feeling quite a bit better, and I ramped up the pace to 30kph for the last few kms to Sorrento. I couldn't see him anywhere, so I collected my meal and ferry ticket and feasted on the remainder of the biscuits.
My mother would have been appalled - I didn't make any attempt to savour the flavour (although being Aldi products, there wasn't much flavour to be savoured), I just gorged. It was the best meal I've ever had:)
Managed to find James as well as Anand, who James had rushed to meet, and soon afterwards, another high school friend, Ronald, and Matt, a guy from my uni, who I'd met at last year's Melbourne Half. It was great lying sprawled on the asphalt, telling tall stories about the 100k that we'd just ridden and about the 110k to come. I think Matt took the prize: about 70km in, his chain broke, which as far as I know, is one of the least frequent mechanical issues one can encounter without colliding with something. I was freezing though! I was almost considering riding around for a bit to keep warm, but the ferry had arrived, so I warmed up there instead:)
Half an hour later, and we were in Queenscliff, readying ourselves for some more riding. I tried to keep the group together, but James and Anand soon shot off, and Ronald couldn't keep up with Matt and I. There weren't many big bunches any more, so we pushed the pedals unassisted, Matt finding it a lot easier than me on his road bike. The next 30k or so were quite pleasant, just chatting and not working too hard. Once again though, things started falling apart. We began comparing heart rates every so often, and it made both of us laugh to hear how much faster mine was beating:P I'd run out of food again, and although I wasn't feeling hungry, I knew I needed to keep eating or else I simply wasn't going to last. So when the twin golden arches became visible in the distance, I voted for a Maccers stop. The other customers looked a bit bemused to see us in there in our cleats and jerseys and I found it a bit amusing myself, having not been into one of those fine establishments in probably over a year:P Man those chips were good though!
The route was fairly uninteresting in the back half of the ride. Looking at the cleared, featureless, concrete jungle, it didn't surprise me that we were the only riders on the road. It wouldn't be very motivating to ride when there's nothing nice to look at, and a lot of angry drivers driving very quickly on the roads. It only got worse after we went through Geelong. The 50 or so km back to Melbourne were going to be all down the side of the freeway by the looks of it. There was a tremendous tail-wind though, so with the sun on our backs and the act of riding almost effortless, I was quite enjoying it. Quite a few people went past me, and it amused me to hear comments like 'Doing pretty well for a mountain bike!' I don't think I would've been going much faster even if I'd been riding a full carbon machine with 220psi tyres!
At one point a group of six or so went past me, and in a burst of energy, I decided to latch on. It felt really great:) We were doing ~30kph and I was feeling better than I had at any other point during the ride. At one point, the group slowed so I surged to the next group, which was actually going slower, and so on. I just kept on passing people and was feeling terrific! To have the end of the ride go that well was really amazing and I certainly wasn't expecting it.
It didn't last all the way back; however. With about 200km on the odo, I suddenly and overwhelmingly bonked. From doing 30kph comfortably, I was reduced to 9kph. After having experienced a fair few in my career, I've worked out a system of categorisation for bonks. There are slow leaks, where you ever so gradually start slowing down; there are the trippy fast bonks, where you suddenly hit the wall, slow down dramatically, but feel so completely relaxed about it that you don't care in the slightest; and then there are the painful fast bonks, where you hit the wall and just feel terrible. Overall I prefer the trippy fast bonks, and this was one of them, so I really didn't mind too much that I was still a fair distance away from home with a high chance of not making it to the westgate bridge before it was closed off.
I was a bit surprised when about 5 minutes later, Matt sauntered up. After he dropped me on the freeway, I was expecting him to have already finished by now, but he told me he'd taken a fairly long break at a rest-stop. His high spirits gave me the energy to go a bit faster until we reached a very conveniently situated service station. A large packet of chips and a powerade consumed the last of my ready money, but it topped up the energy supplies, and after struggling up the Westgate bridge and getting dropped by Matt again, I finished strongly, sprinting off all the green lights before crossing the line at 5:46pm - 11 hrs and 46 minutes after I'd started.
It was a bit slower than I was hoping for, but I think I still averaged around 25kph, so that's not too bad at all:) I definitely know what I have to do to improve for next year (we've already decided we're going to do the 250k): bring food! I was expecting to get a big lunch, considering how many calories we would've burnt, but for me, it amounted to one sandwich (the powerbar and chocolate cake were sadly not vegan).
Caught up with the others at the finish area. I was surprised that James and Anand had only finished 15 minutes in front of me (Matt was ahead of me by about 3 minutes) - from the way they were riding, I would've put money on them being an hour in front! Apparently James bonked pretty hard at the Westgate bridge though, so that explains it. We again swapped our stories, though I think they were a bit shorter this time - no-one had the energy to make up fibs:P
No-one really felt like waiting around much longer, so Matt, Anand and I bid goodbye to James and rode off home. I couldn't keep up! Those last twenty km were pretty tough, though easier once Anand had peeled off and stopped forcing the pace (can't believe how much he kicks my ass considering that he smokes!).
I was pretty content with the total: 257km (ATB turned out to be 220k according to our measurements). There's no way I could've done another 43km on top of that! Felt absolutely wrecked when I got home. I had a massive headache and was feeling quite nauseous, so it made finishing my last assignment for the semester (which was due that night:S) quite difficult!
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Phew, sorry about that, I need to cut back on the verbosity of my posts! I'm sure I could convey the same message in a few sentences if I tried:P '2554 words'!
I've started my running plan this week. Starting from Monday night, I've done 5k every day. I haven't been taking it easy either - my legs have felt like running fast and I haven't been able to stop myself from starting every run at around 3:45/k:P Probably not the best training strategy, but it sure is fun for the first 2km! (And then I have to drag my over-eager hide back to where I started, going a lot slower than when I began:P).
Also invented a really fun treadmill workout: I decided to make use of my gym membership at work, and started off at a much more sensible pace than I had the other two days: 12kph. This quickly became so boring that I decided to up the pace by .1kph every 30 seconds. It really made the time fly by! I was feeling fine up to about the 20 minute mark when I was doing 3:50/k. By the time I got down to 3:36/k though, I was stuffed and threw in the towel after 25 mins (5.89k = 4:15/k). It's a great workout, I think I'm gonna try and do it once every week.
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