100 miles of….hills
so, i’m at the stage where i can’t stop thinking about philly…so, i’m probably going to do a lot of babbling about it in the next 18 days. don’t hate.
back in may when i did the 100 miles of nowhere, i convinced myself that if i could do that silly loop 30 whatever times with all the wind and none of the training, that i could do 100 miles in philly no problem. well, not no problem, but you know what i mean.
but…there are hills in philly.
like, real hills. 4337ft worth of hills to be exact.
and my habit of not checking elevation profiles or course maps until its too late to matter (or, like, EVER) for races might not be the greatest strategy for you know, FINISHING (withOUT the help of the sag wagon).
i have taken a close look at what i’m up against. and its got me a tad freaked out. what i didn’t take into account when i rode around in circles back in may was that i had all the time in the world to do so. i lounged for lunch and took MANY breaks. i finished in…well, i finished and that’s what mattered then - that i finished.
this time though, i don’t get to lounge around and ride in circles at my own pace, with friendly faces holding up signs of encouragement along the way. oops, i mean, here they are…not sleeping. this is a solo journey. and has a time limit.
i have 8.5 hours to finish.
if i’m not on pace to finish within the hour at the 7.5 hour mark, i’ll be
‘politely asked by staff to allow a SAG vehicle to take me to a safe location near the finish line where I’ll be allowed to ride through the finish and enjoy the post event party.’
that sounds like a load or horse crap to me. if i get picked up by a SAG wagon, i want it to take me to the back of the building where nobody is watching so i can quietly sulk away back to dc. i know, its a touch dramatic (i have a knack for that), but i’ll be disappointed. severely disappointed. and i’ll feel a little bit like a cheater magee by crossing the finish line unearned. so…
8.5 hours to finish.
now, if i look at my time in may, this should be more than manageable. i finished in less time and sat around some. i also had not been riding long distances at all prior to that and had a few mechanical difficulties that have since been worked out.
so, no problem, 8.5 hours. that’s a pace of roughly 12 miles per hour, including breaks. my goal is to hammer out a 16-18 mph pace for the duration. assuming the hills don’t totally rule me, i should be able to make up any lost time on the downhill and keep pace.
oh, but what about those hills?!?! enter, hill training.
in dc, there are no hills. so, once a week (well, that’s what i for the past several months, i try to spend an hour hunting hills in dc. what that actually translates to is going up and down the same 5 mile loop a few times. (i think the construction workers and bus drivers on park road think i’m mad.) plus a few spin classes a week that i crank the resistance up on.
this is all fine and dandy, except i’m not feeling the hills in these rides after 6 hours of riding. i’m feeling them on totally fresh legs. there’s a good chance of system failure here, folks. a very good chance, indeed.
my response, totally illogical, is to do hills before work every day for the next two weeks. (squeeze, you will be happy to know this means the garden gets a regular drink for the next few weeks as well.) this will likely do nothing for my overall ability to ride up and down hills at the desired pace, but will hopefully bring my confidence up a notch or two. or down…err, that would be UNdesirable.
