Queen stage :-)
Things I learned today:
The reason why this race is a 2 person team event
One month is not enough time to prepare for this event no matter how fit or experience you are
Garmin 500 battery life is just over 10 hours
My bike is lighter than Trever's
Stage 2 we were told was the hardest stage with a distance of 90 miles and over 10000 ft of climbing. It sounded menacing and it was. The stage started with 10 miles of paved road and then another 10 on a rolling dirt road. We covered the first 20 miles in about 1 hour. We rode with the lead pack for the first 10 miles and decided to back off and be conservative. It was going to be a long day.
I knew Trever was not having a great day when he started falling off of my pace on the climbs so I started backing off or slowing down at the top of the climbs. We made to the halfway point in about 4 hrs and thought we were doing good time. Not slow, not fast. Steady. The weather was cooperating also with light rain for the first 4-5 hours. I was trying to help by pushing when I could.
This is about when things started to get ugly. Trever was looking worse even though he was eating and drinking. We hit the first singletrack which was fun and we kept motoring. At about mile 60 we started the most difficult crazy 30 miles. About 10 miles of technical singletrack with tons of steep hike-a-bike sections. This section was called vietnam. By the way I HATE VIETNAM!!
Just before the tough section Trever clipped his handlebars on a rock and did the most amazing endo. It was a thing of beauty. He landed hard on his shoulder and I truly thought he was done. I expected a broken collar bone or damaged shoulder. Luckily he only bruised his thigh, took some skin of his shin (nice memory of Brazil) and bruised his hand. We sat for maybe 5 minutes and then continued on.
At this point I was very worried about Trever. He looked bad so I started taking his bike on the hike-a-bike section and pushing both bikes up the hills while he walked, drank and ate. I was feeling very good. Felt strong. (this is why this race is a two person team event - you never know what can happen and why I know my bike is lighter than his).
Trever is one of the most fit people I know and has done more stage races than anyone I know, we've done a few events together and he has pushed and pulled me on more than one occasion so it felt good to be able to repay and I was set on doing everything I could to get him to the finish line. I must say that Trever only got a one month advance notice about this race while I have been preparing for 3-4 months.
We finally made it out of Vietnam and to the last aid station. We got Trever some medical help. They checked his blood pressure, gave him some anti nausea medication and forced him to eat and drink. We were probably there for about 30 minutes. All we had left was 13-14 miles of dirt road, 3000 ft of climbing with pitches up to 30%. OUCH!! We had 4 miles of rollers then the big climb and finally the descent into the finish. I pulled Trever again at the bottom and then the doors fell off. All of a sudden it was me feeling nauseous. I had to get off my bike a few times when it got too steep. At one point I got off the bike, took my helmet off and sat down. Another 10 minutes lost. Cramps started hit me near the top so I had to pedal one legged while still climbing.
Top of the hill and 2 mikes to the finish. Relief!! We made it to the finish in about 10:30 hours. Barely!! Trever got two I.V. Bags in him while I found us a hotel (1 mile climb - MOFO). Rode back into town, got some burgers, picked up our luggage, dropped off bags and hitched a ride to the hotel. An exhausting fucking day,,
Tomorrow is the XC day so we don't have to ride together five laps of a 4 mile loop. I wonder how much energetic I'll have. At least it shouldn't take more than a couple of hours. Stay tuned.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Ride Brasil 2012 - Day 1
Pre race
Trever and I arrived in Salvador on Thursday afternoon after a three flight trip. There is a four hour time difference so jet lag was an issue for us so we took a nap and headed to dinner. That night we slept for almost 12 hours and next day we headed to do some touristy stuff. On Friday we walked near the beach, went to a marine museum and just lounged around. Nothing exciting.
Saturday we met the shuttle that would take us to Mucuge at 7:30 am at the airport. Bus was supposed to take 6 hrs but it took a lot longer than that. We didn't leave until almost 9 am so we didn't arrive until almost 6. No chance to preride the prologue course. We built the bikes, found a room, and got the lay of the land.
We decided to pre ride on the morning of the prologue and made the mistake of assuming we knew where we were going and rode for 30 minutes before we realized we were on going the wrong way. Once we found the course we decided to still preride even though we had already ridden about 1 hour. As we started , less than mile from the start, Trever sheared off the spindle of one of his pedals. Luckily he didn't go down. So we went back go the room to get the spare pedals we brought. To make the story short. We ended up riding almost 3 hours and that's before racing.
Prologue
The start was interesting. They started us out 2 teams at a time. The team that we started with was not very fast so we quickly moved ahead. As we were going through the same spot where Trever broke his pedal I hit a rock and tore a chunk off the sidewall of my tire and it went flat in 3 seconds! We changed it pretty quickly in around 3 minutes. We got going again and started passing folks. The course had 3 sections of singletrack with the middle section having some VERY technical sections and quite a bit of sandy sections as well. I was on a roll passing people left and right, but Trever was having a hard time getting around folks. I stopped a couple of times to make sure he was still there and hadn't had a mechanical When I hit a sandy uphill section (we walked it on the preride) I was feeling strong and rode the thing and moved ahead of Trever. I think this is where Trever pushed too hard getting up the hill and started to struggle.
To get to the last section of singletrack we had to ride on the road for about 1.5 miles. Straight uphill - steep bugger. I had Trever hold on to my jersey as I pushed up the hill. Once in the last piece of singletrack, we just had a little more climbing to do and then all downhill to the finish - almost. That's when a mixed team we had passed earlier passed us. Both were strong climbers but had no tech skills. The guy let us go by but the gal was stubborn and would not get out of the way. She even got off and was walking as we were riding. Bee-atch!!! We finally got around her almost at the bottom - a little pissed to say the least.
We finished in 1:20 good for 13th place out of about 30 teams. Twenty minutes behind the master winners. We could have done a 1:10 but tomorrow is another day and the hardest of the race so I'm sure we'll move up. Still 6 days to go. Stay tuned.
Trever and I arrived in Salvador on Thursday afternoon after a three flight trip. There is a four hour time difference so jet lag was an issue for us so we took a nap and headed to dinner. That night we slept for almost 12 hours and next day we headed to do some touristy stuff. On Friday we walked near the beach, went to a marine museum and just lounged around. Nothing exciting.
Saturday we met the shuttle that would take us to Mucuge at 7:30 am at the airport. Bus was supposed to take 6 hrs but it took a lot longer than that. We didn't leave until almost 9 am so we didn't arrive until almost 6. No chance to preride the prologue course. We built the bikes, found a room, and got the lay of the land.
We decided to pre ride on the morning of the prologue and made the mistake of assuming we knew where we were going and rode for 30 minutes before we realized we were on going the wrong way. Once we found the course we decided to still preride even though we had already ridden about 1 hour. As we started , less than mile from the start, Trever sheared off the spindle of one of his pedals. Luckily he didn't go down. So we went back go the room to get the spare pedals we brought. To make the story short. We ended up riding almost 3 hours and that's before racing.
Prologue
The start was interesting. They started us out 2 teams at a time. The team that we started with was not very fast so we quickly moved ahead. As we were going through the same spot where Trever broke his pedal I hit a rock and tore a chunk off the sidewall of my tire and it went flat in 3 seconds! We changed it pretty quickly in around 3 minutes. We got going again and started passing folks. The course had 3 sections of singletrack with the middle section having some VERY technical sections and quite a bit of sandy sections as well. I was on a roll passing people left and right, but Trever was having a hard time getting around folks. I stopped a couple of times to make sure he was still there and hadn't had a mechanical When I hit a sandy uphill section (we walked it on the preride) I was feeling strong and rode the thing and moved ahead of Trever. I think this is where Trever pushed too hard getting up the hill and started to struggle.
To get to the last section of singletrack we had to ride on the road for about 1.5 miles. Straight uphill - steep bugger. I had Trever hold on to my jersey as I pushed up the hill. Once in the last piece of singletrack, we just had a little more climbing to do and then all downhill to the finish - almost. That's when a mixed team we had passed earlier passed us. Both were strong climbers but had no tech skills. The guy let us go by but the gal was stubborn and would not get out of the way. She even got off and was walking as we were riding. Bee-atch!!! We finally got around her almost at the bottom - a little pissed to say the least.
We finished in 1:20 good for 13th place out of about 30 teams. Twenty minutes behind the master winners. We could have done a 1:10 but tomorrow is another day and the hardest of the race so I'm sure we'll move up. Still 6 days to go. Stay tuned.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
2010 - Here we come!!
Hi everyone - Wendy here. Now that we are into the new decade I decided it was time to get our butts in gear again and keep our blog updated. A lot happened last year, we got busy and as you know we haven't posted anything since May '09.
So our New Year was quiet. Usually NY Eve we are out and about somewhere, partying like rock stars (ha, ha), but this year we kinda petered out and decided to stay home, veg with a movie and generally be couch potatoes....guess what - we did a good job at it! We were asleep by 10:30!
This year I have the honor of the first race. Last weekend 1/2/10 I got up at O dark 30 and drove half asleep all the way from Chandler to near Lake Pleasant for the Castle Hot Springs 22 mile run. This was a new race for me but the race has happened every year for the past many years. The place was not on Google maps nor could the car nav system find it. Lucky for me the directions on the race registration form were accurate enough. So I got out there eventually, pay my fee and get my race number etc. It was very cold and we started off just as the sun was coming up. About 70 or so like minded runners began the loop that started out going uphill and was never flat ! We were either going up or going down... 3500 ft up and 3496 ft down to be precise :- ) by the way where does the Garmin put those extra few feet? Thankfully I decided to run this like a smart person - translate that to slowly... Karen one of the gals on our Ragnar Relay team was there and she started out strong and I soon decided it was not my day to try to hang with her right from the gun. So for about 10 miles I'm keeping it easy, watching my drinking and eating and telling myself that if I feel good at the 10 mile mark I will try to speed up. So after 10 miles I'm feeling really good, and I mean really good. I couldn't believe that being smart was working. About mile 12 I passed a bunch of runners, Karen included, who were struggling. Did I mention I LOVE downhills and they were my friends that day. So anyway, I was still feeling really good at 15 miles so I focused on lifting my pace a little more until mile 18. There I hit a little wall of sorts..my legs felt good but I could tell I was starting to tire. I'd been trying not to fixate on my time, just keeping track of the miles and around 19 miles I sneaked a peek just to see and was very surprised to see only 3:25 which meant I had about 3 miles to go and 35 mins to finish in 4 hours which was my secret goal. Right about then there were a few tough hills, steep enough to force a slow walk up and a careful jog down and I assumed I was doomed to finish after 4 hours so I just settled in counted down the last couple of miles. As I round one of the last turns I can see all the cars parked and the finish area so I pushed just a little harder and crossed the line with a hug smile coz guess what... I'd finished in 3:55:35!!! How cool was that...I think just relaxing and forgetting about the time helped. I didn't get tensed up about not making my goal and ended up doing so anyway.
It was a terrific race. Not so much coz of the result for me (which of course was great) but also the scenery up there was outstanding. The weather was absolutely perfect for running. The sun was shining, there was a slight breeze and the temps rose slowly to the mid 60's. Who could ask for more?
So that's my saga for the 2010 Castle Hot Springs race. I'll be back next year.
C'y all later.
Wendy.
So our New Year was quiet. Usually NY Eve we are out and about somewhere, partying like rock stars (ha, ha), but this year we kinda petered out and decided to stay home, veg with a movie and generally be couch potatoes....guess what - we did a good job at it! We were asleep by 10:30!
This year I have the honor of the first race. Last weekend 1/2/10 I got up at O dark 30 and drove half asleep all the way from Chandler to near Lake Pleasant for the Castle Hot Springs 22 mile run. This was a new race for me but the race has happened every year for the past many years. The place was not on Google maps nor could the car nav system find it. Lucky for me the directions on the race registration form were accurate enough. So I got out there eventually, pay my fee and get my race number etc. It was very cold and we started off just as the sun was coming up. About 70 or so like minded runners began the loop that started out going uphill and was never flat ! We were either going up or going down... 3500 ft up and 3496 ft down to be precise :- ) by the way where does the Garmin put those extra few feet? Thankfully I decided to run this like a smart person - translate that to slowly... Karen one of the gals on our Ragnar Relay team was there and she started out strong and I soon decided it was not my day to try to hang with her right from the gun. So for about 10 miles I'm keeping it easy, watching my drinking and eating and telling myself that if I feel good at the 10 mile mark I will try to speed up. So after 10 miles I'm feeling really good, and I mean really good. I couldn't believe that being smart was working. About mile 12 I passed a bunch of runners, Karen included, who were struggling. Did I mention I LOVE downhills and they were my friends that day. So anyway, I was still feeling really good at 15 miles so I focused on lifting my pace a little more until mile 18. There I hit a little wall of sorts..my legs felt good but I could tell I was starting to tire. I'd been trying not to fixate on my time, just keeping track of the miles and around 19 miles I sneaked a peek just to see and was very surprised to see only 3:25 which meant I had about 3 miles to go and 35 mins to finish in 4 hours which was my secret goal. Right about then there were a few tough hills, steep enough to force a slow walk up and a careful jog down and I assumed I was doomed to finish after 4 hours so I just settled in counted down the last couple of miles. As I round one of the last turns I can see all the cars parked and the finish area so I pushed just a little harder and crossed the line with a hug smile coz guess what... I'd finished in 3:55:35!!! How cool was that...I think just relaxing and forgetting about the time helped. I didn't get tensed up about not making my goal and ended up doing so anyway.
It was a terrific race. Not so much coz of the result for me (which of course was great) but also the scenery up there was outstanding. The weather was absolutely perfect for running. The sun was shining, there was a slight breeze and the temps rose slowly to the mid 60's. Who could ask for more?
So that's my saga for the 2010 Castle Hot Springs race. I'll be back next year.
C'y all later.
Wendy.
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