Sneaky Bastard

This is a clip from Goodbye to the Normals. I don’t know how much longer the complete film is, but the IMDb page shows that the running time is only three minutes. Bummer! I was hoping it was a feature length film. I would die laughing.

The ride was last Saturday. I left my house at 0500 hours and arrived at registration at 0630. On the drive up, I drank some CytoSport Pre-Formance and ate a banana and toast. The weather in Solvang was foggy with temps in the high 50°s. I didn’t bring any cold weather gear because I don’t like to carry anything the rest of the day. I was a bit cold, but after a couple miles I warmed right up. The ride from Solvang to Lompoc was quite pleasant; very little traffic and decent road conditions.

At the first stop, I was feeling fantastic. Between the start line and the rest stop, I had two GU Energy Gels and 24 ounces of CytoSport CytoMax. From the food table, I grabbed a cookie and slice of pineapple (yum!). Onward.

Shortly after leaving Lompoc, there was a gnarly headwind. It was brutal. I towed more than one rider up the road, and I paid for it later. The wind also whisked away my sweat so it was deceiving how much water I was loosing. By the second stop, I drank another 24 ounces of CytoMax, and the same amount of water. I had a couple more GU gels on the course.

The stretch between Vandenberg and Santa Maria was tough — not because there was any climbing to speak of, but because the wind was wearing me down. My energy was low and my lower back was starting to cramp up. I should have brought more electrolyte products and some NSAIDs. The GU gels were not enough to keep me going. At the third stop, I had a bit of bagel and some peanuts. I hoped the salt on the peanuts would help a little. Besides, they tasted great. :)

Shortly after the third stop, I was really thrashed. I was drinking as much water as I could, probably 10 ounces every 15 minutes. It just didn’t feel like it was getting into my system. I’m sure CytoMax would have been a huge help right then. My speeds dropped considerably and I was spinning a low gear to prevent fatigue.

I reached the fourth stop in Sisquoc and tried to relax my back by lying on the ground with my feet and knees up. It didn’t help much. Any time I moved, it would start cramping up. After 15 minutes of ineffective resting, I picked up a bit more food and filled my bottles again. Before leaving the stop, I poured water over my head and down my jersey in an attempt to cool off. It felt great for a few minutes, and then it was gone.

Until the 85 mile mark on the course, there really aren’t any climbs worth mentioning. And the last couple climbs of the Solvang Century on any other day would be a piece of cake. However, by the time I got there, I was completely cracked. I pulled out my Kool Kovers and pushed my bike up the hill. Even this minimal amount of work was leaving me breathless. Eventually I made it over and rode with reckless abandon down the other side.

The last stop at the Firestone Winery was starting to pack up their gear. It was nearly 1700 hours, and the sun had already slipped below the mountains. The CHP wanted everybody off the road on the north side of the 154. There was only one climb, and it would have been practically nothing on any other day. But I had to trudge up it again on foot. Looking at my GPS, I could see that I was walking at 2-3 MPH. Even that was slow. It did use some fresher muscles though, and gave me a chance to suck down more water. The descent down Foxen Canyon was awesome. At 40 MPH, I would reach the 154 in just minutes.

I didn’t realize that there was a crazy set of switchbacks on Ballard Canyon between Los Olivos and Solvang though. That sucked ass. However, I recovered enough on the descent down Foxen Canyon that I had enough power to pedal up the hill. This is the same road that the Amgen Tour of California TT was on, and the names of the professional riders were still fresh on the road. It was practically dark by the time I made it back to Solvang. But I made it. I didn’t climb into the pink house shame wagon, even though the offer was made a couple times.

So, what went wrong? I didn’t get enough sports drink and Advil? I took my heavier and less aerodynamic touring bike? Six GU gels wasn’t enough? I didn’t have enough base miles in before the event? Four hours wasn’t enough sleep the night before? The 90 minute drive to the event was pushing it? I don’t know. This was my worst performance in a century ride ever. I’ve done several century rides, a double metric century, and a double century. Those rides were actually enjoyable. On the upside, it didn’t rain. :)

My folks were waiting at the finish line for me. I told them I’d probably finish by 1400 or 1500 hours. So, for several hours, they waited and watched the thousands of other riders roll past. When I finally did arrive, I turned into the parking lot, rather than crossing the formal finish line. This is the second group ride that I’ve bypassed the finish line, and left my fans (both of them) wondering. I must remember to cross that line next time. After I put my gear in the truck and threw on some street clothes, we had a nice dinner at the Royal Scandinavian Inn.

The map below links to the Google Earth KMZ file for the course.

I previously used the command line version of GPSBabel to connect to my GPS via USB and transfer the data to a GPX format file. That works just fine, and I have a shell script for doing the job. However, I recently found an application that makes this procedure much more convenient. It’s LoadMyTracks by ClueTrust. It’s not fancy, but it does work perfectly.

Okay, so this is kind of lame, but I’m gonna post it anyway. I was transferring some tracks from my Garmin eTrex Vista C, and overlaying them in Google Earth. I noticed that the satellite image of my house showed my truck parked in the driveway. I don’t know why, but that just makes me chuckle.

I just about fell off my chair laughing when I received an e-mail promotion for the launch of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. Wow!! A one percent savings! How could I possibly pass that up? I’d better hurry up and take advantage of this “Special Introductory Price” before it expires in 54 days.