Part II: RAGBRAI Ride Across Iowa - Heat, Hills and More

Continued...

Day 2: Cherokee to Lakeview (62 miles)

I had a fairly early start, around 7.00 am.  The organizers were being nice by slowly cranking up the distances every day.  The route started to take us due south, and into a bit of a headwind, but otherwise it was a nice day's cycling, not too hilly, and I made good progress, stopping at most of the towns for just a quick snack.  I also made sure I rode under every hose and sprinkler I could find as the temperatures rose.  By around mid-day, when I rode through the last town, it was getting really hot - the temperature coming off the pavement was around 110 deg F.

Iowan sunrise

When I got to the campsite, it was scorchingly hot, and, unlike the first night, there was no tree cover.  The first thing I did was jump into a nearby lake to cool off.  I stayed in there for about 45 minutes, trying to find the colder currents, feeling really good about finishing the cycling early and still feeling fresh.  After this, I came back to the group's rest area (a.k.a 'pamper zone' - area shaded with canvas, camping chairs, cold drinks, snacks), and sat down for a bit, planning on waiting out the heat before going into town to get some dinner.  This was one of the hardest things about the ride - there was no escaping the heat.  It would have been much easier if I'd been able to go into a nice air-conditioned hotel room to properly cool off.

And this is where my scariest moment of the week occurred.  I had a nap, but when I woke up, I felt dizzy and thought I was going to pass out.  Even in the shade, it was probably still in the 90's, with no breeze.   I got up, walked behind a truck for more shade, and wondered if I should ask someone to call for an ambulance.  Some people had found a hose and were having showers with it, so I borrowed that to cool off.  Then I decided to cycle into town and find somewhere to cool down.

When I went into the town's supermarket, it was still stiflingly hot and humid; all the cyclists were talking about how hard the heat was, and some were talking of bailing the next day.  I began to get spooked and wondered if I would make it, as there were another 2 days of really bad heat to go before things started to cool off.  When I signed up for this ride, the idea wasn't to suffer, it was to have an enjoyable week touring around, so I began to question if I even wanted to finish it.  

Then I found the small public library of the town, and it was CRAMMED full of cyclists, everywhere, sitting on at the tables, sitting, lying on the floor, sleeping..it conjured up images of how public buildings would be used to house people in the event of a nuclear fall-out or some kind of terrible natural disaster.  I napped again in the library, and stayed there until closing, at 8.00 pm. 

After, I bought a couple of slices of pizza, then came back to the campsite.  I spoke to Rachel and told her about my doubts about finishing the ride.  She told me I'd be disappointed if I didn't finish it, which I knew in the back of my head, so I decided to take it one day at a time, give it a go the next day, and take it from there.

Day 3: Lakeview to Webster City (81 miles)

I had my earliest start yet, around 4.30 am, and started riding in complete darkness, but with hundreds of other cyclists hoping to beat the worst of the heat, by 5.00 am.

The first couple of hours of cycling in the day throughout the week were definitely the best.  You could cycle through the cool morning air and watch a beautiful sunrise over the fields.  Even though I knew I had another tough day's cycling ahead, I did my best to savour these moments.

6.00 am breakfast stop.

I also tried to feed off the amazingly fun and positive spirit of the other riders.  During the week, I saw the most incredible array of bikes imaginable.  Road bikes, mountain bikes, touring bikes, tandems, you name it.  On the Tuesday morning, I couldn't quite believe it when I saw a man dressed as a banana, cycling along in a recumbant..banana.  Later on that morning, I saw a unicyclist, who I noticed also had a unicycle tattoo.  That's pretty hardcore.  Today was an 80 mile day, with an optional 20 miles to make it a century (which I decided after about .01 seconds of careful consideration I wasn't going to do), but he was doing all 100 - which he said would probably take him about 10 hours in total.   

Man peddling in a banana

By afternoon the ride was getting quite hard; we were riding on an exposed ridge, with a headwind of what I found out later was gusting up to 20 mph.  The advantage of riding with hundreds of other people is that there are opportunities for drafting, which is what I did, but, for the times when I was riding by myself, the riding was draining.    Whatsmore, I was starting to get saddle sore, and was realising that my tri bike wasn't made to be a touring bike.  The saddle may have been made for speed, but I was finding out the hard way that it wasn't made for comfort.

By the time I got to the host town, Webster City, I was pretty toasted.  I spent the rest of the afternoon sheltering from the heat in the cool and quirky Webster City museum.  It was over 100 degrees again and humid; sweltering hot.  Then, staying in the shade where possible, I found a church with some fellow riders that was doing a huge pasta dinner for $10, did some laundry, and then came back to the site.  By 10.00 pm I was ready to crash.

Day 4:  Webster City to Marshalltown (77 miles)

This was the day when the saddle soreness started to catch up with me.  Right from the moment of getting on the bike first thing in the morning, my backside was really painful; it felt like it had been attacked with a potato peeler, and the saddle dipped in vinegar.    I even tried stuffing a t-shirt down my cycling shorts for extra padding, but nothing seemed to help.  

The day was definitely a big mental challenge.  I started to break the distance down, just focusing on getting up to 10 miles, then 25 - nearly a third of the way through, 38 - half way, etc, all the time.  I do this during marathons and the mental games playing tricks on your body really helps.  I was also encouraged by other riders.   At one stage in the morning, the pain from my posterior was getting so bad I thought I'd have to stop, when just at that moment, I passed a dad with two young sons, who shouted out loudly:  "now there's a real man - cycling with one leg".   Bouyed up, I pushed on - no chance that I was going to stop in front of them.

Throughout the ride, people were only complementary about my leg.  I started out maybe a little self-concious, but found I had no need to be.   However, some would have been even more impressed if I was an army veteran, as illustrated by the conversation I had with one elderly rider:

Medicine Man Injury of the day: Tendonitis (didn't try him).

"How did you lose your leg?  Armed forces?"  Me:  "No, from birth..".  Rider (look of disappointment coming over his face):  "Oh...I thought you were one of our brave heroes.."  In the most anticlimactic way a conversation could end, he then mumbled something about how it was great what I was doing anyway, and thats where our chat petered out.

By the end of the day, my backside was in excruciating pain, and I thought I'd ridden my last day.  There was no way I could carry on being that sore.  I have an additional disadvantage in that I'm not able to stand up on my bike, to relieve the pain.  Still, I thought, I'd given it a good effort, so, with my spirits relatively high, I went into town with a new friend I'd met on the ride, Rob, had a Chinese meal, and went back to campsite for another early night.  My plan for the next day though was to get up late, ride to the first town, and then pick up the support vehicle to take me to the next overnight town. 


To be Continued..

Race Report - NYC Aquaphor Triathlon

Yesterday I finished my first olympic distance triathlon!  The distances are a 1500m swim in the Hudson, a 40 km bike up the West side of Manhattan and back, then a 10k run in and around Central Park.

The more I compete in these races, the more I'm able to anticipate pre-race nerves, and even though they never seem to go away, at least I can tell myself in the back of my head that nerves are usual and, once I get going, I'll probably be fine.

For this event, the swim was again my biggest challenge.   I only progressed from a doggy paddle about 4 years ago, and had only done 2 open water swims in a wetsuit before this race.   My previous longest swim was 800 metres, so I'd be nearly doubling that, but I knew I just had to overcome the initial nerves about being in the water, find my stride, not panic, and I'd be OK.

I also don't do well in hot weather, and, as if ordered by the merciless Weather Gods, along comes a great heatwave affecting half of the country.  Even though I could do nothing about it, this didn't stop me from checking weather.com every 20 minutes or so in my waking hours in the couple of days leading up to the race.  I had disaster-scenario visions about sweltering and then passing out in my wetsuit in the river, or even worse - being told the river was too warm to wear a wetsuit, which helps my buoyancy.    Also, the hardest run I've ever done was the Chicago marathon in 2010, when it got up to about 88 deg F, so I was really hoping for a let up in the heat.  As it happened, the hottest day of the weekend was Saturday, when it reached about 100, but race day on Sunday was forecast to peak at 90.  My start time was 7.00 am, so as long as I didn't dawdle, I should be done before it started getting really hot.

Waiting for swim - with Stephanie, Eliza, and Kat

I was up at 4.30 am to take a taxi down to the transition area on 72nd street.  I'd taken my bike down, and packed all my stuff (swim cap, noseclip, goggles, wetsuit, goos, biking shoe, biking leg, running shoe, running leg, glasses, gloves, water bottles, energy bars - checked at least 4 times) the day before, so all I had to do was a quick bike check, and then make my way towards the swim start, a mile away from transition.

Quick pre-race interview!

As Rachel (kindly helping me as my 'handler' -handlers are assigned to help 'challenged' athletes - for the day) and I walked down along the side of the river, we saw the elite swimmers had already started, powering down the river, leading the approx. 3500 other athletes in the race.  We could also see the strong tide helping them.  The fastest swim on this course is only 9 minutes!    An encouraging sight was that the river was completely flat, unlike last year's choppy conditions (and maybe not by coincidence, where two people had heart attacks).

As we neared the start, my anxiety started to build up a bit, but I was also excited, and looking forward to getting going.  I also made it onto live TV!  I was collared by a Fox TV crew, along with Sarah Reinertsen, a well renowned ironman amputee, for a 2 minute chat about how we got into triathlons.

Then it was time to zip up the old wetsuit, and along with the rest of the approx. 30 para-athletes, hop on to the barge to wait for the horn announcing we could jump into the water.  Ignoring the sight of the odd dead fish floating around the barge (didn't want to think about how they died!), you could sense the energy and anticipation.  I was talking to a wheelchair competitor from England,  Liz McTernan, impressed that someone who can't even walk can throw themselves into the water (as it turns out, she did the swim 11 minutes quicker than me).

The Hudson

Before we knew it, time for the countdown.  First to go would be the TRI1 athletes (wheelchair users), then a 20 second pause, then TRI2 (above knee amputees, my category), and so on for the 6 para categories.  The organizer with a bullhorn announced the 5 minute warning.  3 minutes.  2..1 minute..30 seconds..and then the TRI 1 athletes were off, dropping themselves about 2 feet off the barge with a big splash.  I felt calm as my wave came next, and lowered myself as best as I could into the water as the klaxon went off.

As I went in, I was glad I'd practiced in the Hudson a couple of weeks before.  It must be alarming to go from swimming pool to the Hudson, which is completely murky, and where you can't see more than an inch in front of your face.  I felt fine and started to get some rhythm in my stroke.  I could see the signs on the river wall as I progressed, slowly but surely, first for 500 m, then 800, then 1000.  I knew I was going pretty slowly, but was also excited that I was going to make it, and the hardest part of the event - swim start - was over.

Eventually I could see the swim exit getting bigger and bigger, and I'd made it!  I was grabbed from behind, and up out of the water, and then had my wetsuit stripped from me by two volunteers, while Rachel waited with my leg.  From there I could run back to transition.  My final swim time:  28 mins 23 secs.

After changing into my biking leg, I was away and out of transition.  I was feeling exhilarated by the swim, and felt I had a lot of energy to take me over the finish line.   Going uptown, there was a slight headwind, but going back down south with the wind on my back felt really good.  My final bike time was 1 hr 26 mins, about 18 mph average.

Transition

Back to transition; by this time it was starting to get hot.  After changing into my running leg and stocking up on energy gels, I ran up a steep path out of transition, and onto 72nd Street, which would take me about a mile into Central Park.  The crowd support for this portion was great; there were alot of people clapping and cheering, and the buildings also provided a good amount of shade.

Then it was into the park, and around mile 3 as I started running up the hills on the West side, I started to get some cramps, and stopped for a minute or so to recover.  I knew I wasn't running to break any records or win any prizes, but just to finish, so I was Ok with giving myself with a little breather and not pushing myself too hard.  For the next three miles or so,  I ran for 10 minutes or so, stopped and have some water, and then went on my way.  Around 90 St and 5th Avenue, there was an Achilles cheering team, including Lisa, Soo, Wendy, and Tiffany, who gave me a very welcome cup of ice, and then it was on the home stretch, down Cat Hill, and to the 72nd Street transverse where the finish line waited for me.

Nearing finish line

For the last mile or so I would have loved to have stopped, but there were so many people around, including some familiar faces (Amanda, who I ran my half marathon with in March, and Junko, another inspiring athlete I met through Achilles), that my pride simply wouldn't let me, so I pushed through, knowing I was very nearly there.  I was as excited as I was to finish any marathon, and crossed the line after a run of 1.06.  My overall time: 3 hrs 13 mins.

I think I'm slowly but surely getting addicted to triathlons.  I was a long way behind the winner of my category (Mohamed Lahna, who did it in 2.46), but if I work on my swim more I could shave a lot off my total time.

The rest of the day was spent with the rest of the para-athletes, friends, guides, and handlers, first in one of the hospitality tents past the finish line, and then for beer and burgers on the Upper West Side, generously sponsored by the race organizer, John Korff.  There, as we talked about our race day experiences, my mind started wandering to what the next challenge should be.  Maybe not a full ironman, but I'm pretty should I could do a half...

Team Achilles!

New bike, new....leg??

One of the newer philosophies by which I lead my life these days is:  whenever one gets a new bike, it's always nice to get a new leg to along with it.

About a month ago, at the age of 37, I got my first EVER customized biking leg.  I'm lucky enough in New York to be close to a fantastic prosthetics company, A Step Ahead, and one of their specialities is catering for active amputees who want to participate in all kind of sports.  See here for more info on some of these amazing athletes.

The biking leg is basically a lot lighter than a regular 'walking leg', and it is less built up around the groin area, to enable me to crouch down on the bike, to get out of the wind.  Being an amputee, having less power is one obvious disadvantage on a bike, but another one is when your artificial leg cuts you in all kinds of uncomfortable places during a long ride.  Imagine taking a cheese grater to the old clock weights over the course of a few hours, and you'll get the idea.

Finally, this leg has been adapted so it can clip into the bike.  It has taken a while to get used to, but gives a lot more power than the cages I was using before.

I got my Specialized tri-bike, at a generous discount given to A Step Ahead athletes, from Bike Works on Long Island.   Expensive, but worth every penny!

Yesterday, I biked down from Garrison, about 50 hilly miles north of NYC, along the Hudson river.  I was riding into a headwind all the way, and by the time I got back I was pretty tired.  It was my first long ride of the year, though, so hopefully with a new more long rides I'll start to build up some endurance.