A kiss on the handlebar

Fair warning - I'm writing this Mountains of Misery report in part as a record of what I tried this year and learned for future reference.  So it's going to be a bit of a mishmash of experiences, memories and data.

"Mary likes to help people"

That was the first part of something my teachers said to my parents at their first parent-teacher conference when I was 5 years old.  The other part was "but the other children don't like to be helped." Fortunately, she had me pegged at a very early age.  Unfortunately, it got translated by my folks into "Mary's bossy."  <start of feminist lecture> Seriously, don't tell little girls they're bossy.  It took me a good 20 years to get over that stigma and recognize that I have good strategizing, planning and execution skills.  </end of feminist lecture>

2013 MoM was such an incredible experience for me - not just because I got to bike for 10 hours, but because in the wake of Mark's accident and surgery just a few days before hand, focusing on helping my friends through the event was the very best thing possible for me.  It took my mind off my anger and disappointment that Mark would not be there and also any anxieties I might have for my own ride.

I had so much fun with my friends last year, that I probably went a little overboard on the strong-arming for this year's event.  It wasn't helped by the fact that the team would be there too and with a hilly Ironman on the calendar, an event with "Mountains" in the title seemed perfectly logical.  So, maybe I felt a little responsible, although, as Maggie says, "Peer pressure is a bitch." (Yes, this is the same Maggie, who talked us all into Ironman Mont Tremblant in the first place.)

As the event got closer and I had plenty of opportunity to sound out who was riding MoM (particularly the MoM virgins, of whom there were probably 20+) and what their strengths and weaknesses were, I figured I should put together a strategy document that summarized what I'd learned from my two experiences, as well as wisdoms others have passed along to me.  Thank the maker for Strava, where I could compare data from both years, and average my times for different sections.  I translated that into a "fueling bracelet" similar to the sort of thing I put together for Ironman and attach to my bike's handlebars.  This was included, along with a lot of "how to avoid wasting time at rest stops" and "how to avoid falling over on the big climbs" advice, and delivered to about a dozen teammates.  Some of whom even followed it!

Data is knowledge;  Knowledge is control.

But more useful for me, was something I created at the last minute.  It's an elevation profile with a rough estimate of time between planned key rest stops (we weren't planing on stopping at every rest stop).  As I looked at it, I could see that Mark's suggestion of pushing over the top at the top of the first major climb and regrouping later on would be a good one, depending on who I was riding with and their climbing and descending abilities.  I mean, why stop again after only 30 minutes?

How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.

But all the best laid plans of mice and women are only as good as the day we're delivered and who we find beside us when we're first tested.

There was one person I knew would be with me all the way, and he was 100% behind my plan, so I knew some things for sure:

1. We'd do everything in our power to stay in Z2 for the first four hours (turns out my estimate of 2:45 for the second section was overkill) until the fourth rest stop.
2. We'd skip rest stops 1 & 3.  [One day I'd like to skip 1, 2 & 3, but that would require extra water bottle capacity and some good pace lining skills.]
3. At rest stop 4 (aka the salted potato stop - c. mile 58), we'd re-evaluate our strategy for the next 20 miles, depending on who we were with.

We divided the route into sections for planning purposes:

1. 0-58, easy rollers trending up - four rest stops, we'd skip the odd numbers.  Roughly 4 hrs.
2. 58-60, First Major Climb, rest stop at the top
3. 60-70, fun descent, rest stop
4. 70-80, The Hated Lollipop, rest stop
5. 80-93, a couple of punchy climbs, rest stop
6. 93-97, whatever
7. 97-101, The Final Climb that would test your soul and your legs

Given the strength of the group we ended up with, the route was eventually divided into only four sections, with 9 possible rest stops cut down to 4:

1. 0-58, easy rollers trending up - four rest stops, we'd skip the odd numbers.  Roughly 4 hrs.
2. 58-82 - First Major Climb, descent, lollipop (getting it out of the way while we felt fresh!), only stopping at rest stop at 82, roughly 2 hrs
3. 82-93 - couple of punchy climbs, final major rest stop to gird our loins for the final climb, roughly 1:10
4. 93-101 - The Final Climb (4 miles), however long it takes

The company you keep

Here's the pool of cyclists I thought I'd be riding with, although everyone sensibly planned to ride their own rides.  Hilary, Rich, Marcia and Mark are all my ride buddies, although at different times and in different conditions, we are often either faster or slower than each other.  They are all strong and experienced cyclists and I knew that I'd be in good hands if even only a couple of them were with me.  More importantly, they're fun and positive and just plain good company that I would happily spend 10 hours with on any day.

One of these things, is not like the other ...

My duckings!

Most of the team had registered to start in the last wave, and we headed out together on the first section of the ride.  According to plan, we pacelined a bit, held back for the first 58 mostly false flat miles and spread out from the last wave into natural pace groups.  Fairly early on, I ended up with Rich, Mark, Kathy, Marcia and Ryan.  Here's our finish line photo - you couldn't get a better group of ride companions.

L-R: "Look Mary, I'm eating" Ryan, "I can't catch you on the descent" as she pedals away from us on the uphills Kathy, "We're sticking with the plan" Rich, and "I have a triple" Marcia. "I gave up a weekend of open water swimming for this?" Mark also rode with us, but missed the pic.  He's not on Facebook either.  

Since we had a good group of all strong climbers, we decided at 58 to push over the top of the first major climb and reconvene after the lollipop at mile 82 back at the start line.  That turned out to be a great strategy.  Yes, the climb sucked, but we all got up it in our own way with no, or very little walking, but by not stopping at the top, we avoided having our legs stiffening up and wasting too much time waiting for people.  The descent and tempo riding back to Newport was a nice reward for the climb and heading straight into the lollipop was genius.  It got it over and done with, although it was still tough since I found myself a little low on fluids considering how exposed and hot it is.  But since that'd been our plan, I'd loaded up on fuel and liquid at Maggie and it did last though to the rest stop.  And just a few minutes after the first of us rolled in, we found that we were all together again, and even picked up another Zer as we rolled out for the third section.

This was the first year that the two punches in the gut climbs between 82-93 didn't faze me.  They sucked, for sure, but knowing the route really really helped, and having the elevation profile meant that I knew roughly when they'd start, and more importantly, when they'd end.

The end is nigh

The last section is The Final Climb.  There're a few joyous, pretty downhill miles until you cross a major road and start heading Upward.  The climb is roughly 2 miles of steepness and then 2 miles of Very Steep.  There is an informal stopping point which comes about 200 yards after the start of the Very Steep section, so I decided to keep going to the next rest stop about half a mile up the road.  And when I got there, I figured I wanted to see my team sooner rather than later, so I kept going without stopping. And then came The Hairpin Turn, almost exactly 1 mile from the end.  The team was camped out there.  I could hear their cowbells, but the first thing I saw was a lone, unoccupied chair.  Then I saw this:

I'm sure I looked just like Jens Voigt as I made that turn.

Only, it was a very very long way away.  But time does continue to travel, even when it seems to stand still.  And eventually, I arrived at the team corner, hearing vuvuzelas and unintelligible screams of encouragement.  In order to get around the hairpin turn, I picked up the cadence and sent my HR into Z5 until I made it safely around the corner.  Looking at Strava later, I see what my legs and lungs knew - the 1/2 mile that incorporates that corner is a 13% grade.  At mile 100 of 101.  After 10,000 feet of climbing.  Fuck.

After the cheers had faded, it got very lonely and very difficult very quickly.  Rich's wife Janet ran ahead of him taking photos and shouting encouragement.  I kept my eyes on my ride companion of the past gazillion hours and just focused on keeping my legs turning over.  I know Ryan was beside me and I know we said things to each other, but I don't remember what.  

What I do remember was How. Unbelievably. Long. that last mile was.  I've ridden it twice before, but never without having rested earlier on the mountain.  It was tough, man.  But there was no way I was stopping now.  And when the finish line came in sight, I clicked up a couple of gears and pushed so hard my top lip was involuntarily curling.  Not pretty, but dammit, I just wanted to get across that finish line as soon  as I possibly could.

And once across, thank god for the volunteers that caught me and held me up until I could finally clamber off.  Everything was shaking.  Everything hurt.  Except my pride.  That was in the stratosphere.

The rest is silence

I actually don't remember too much after that.  I know there were a lot of extremely sweaty hugs, pulled pork and periodic jumping up to cheer on my ride- and team-mates as they finished.  I did my best to perform the patent-pending Teaka crazy dance Ironman cheer, but probably just looked like a dork.

Pride

OK, so my pride in myself was in the stratosphere, but my pride in my teammates is in the mesosphere (according to wikipedia, that's even higher than the stratosphere).  I looked at the results and realized that Team Z women comprised about 25% of the 60-odd women who finished the event.  And all our century riders finished, walking or riding over the finish line.  Most people even had smiles on their faces.  

There were people who'd climbed grades worse than the final climb, there were people whose longest ride was in the 60s, there were people who were riding tribikes (aka bringing a knife to a gunfight).  There were a lot of people cursing me (though really they should curse Mark since he was the one who talked ME into MoM in the first place), but I don't care.  They are still rockstars and each overcame things that should make them proud.

And thanks to Zoe the guard dog, my adult beverages were cold and waiting for me when I got back to the team tent to cheer on the remaining riders.

Executing the plan

Thanks to Strava, I can indulge my love of data to my heart's content and I've been doing that over the past couple of days, much to Mark's annoyance, I'm sure.  Some things are no surprise - like a PR on the final climb, a fourth place amongst women on the John's Creek descent, but I think that the things I'm most chuffed about are the bigger picture results that were the result of a smart plan well executed by a highly functional and positive ride team:

• 20 minute overall PR (elapsed time) - 8:49
• 55 minute moving time PR - 7:55
• 25 minute reduction in stoppage time (we eliminated two rest stops entirely)
• Not too much faffing around at stops (6, 17 [strategizing session + salted potatoes require quality time], 18 [more strategizing for the next 20], 13 [more salted potatoes and a last minute decision to pee]).  I think that with a new plan and companions who know the course, we could take another 20 minutes off.
• Riding the whole final climb with no stops.
• Of the 24 segments that Strava is showing, 13 of them are PRs and 12 of those came in the last 30 miles of the ride.  We fueled and hydrated well all day and took it easy initially, and that all really paid off later on, when the going gets really tough.

So, what's up next?  My Month of Crazy Athletic Endeavors continues in two weeks time when my friend Mark gets his revenge on me when we swim across the Chesapeake Bay.  But next year?  Mark (the other Mark) is already trying to talk me into the double metric, but I'll only do it if Rich does it.  Rich?

But before I close out this entry, I should explain the title.  As I was putting Blackbird back in the car, I found myself giving her a quick kiss on the handlebar and thanking her for a great day.  She has proven herself a very worthy successor to Indy and I can't wait for all the adventures we'll be cycling into together following IMMT.