pluckyblond
Member
Here it is...the first ever race report...for a Sebring first timer...
The day before the race flew by pretty quickly. After sleeping in from travel lag, we had a decent breakfast at a local greasy spoon and then headed off to drive the 100 mile course. That scouting became very beneficial during the race. The effort put us back at the hotel around 2, just in time to meet up with the Cruzbike crew. After a little set up (read that as me keeping Bob out of the weeds helping with all the bikes) we were ready to head off with them for the 11 mile loop test ride. Post ride, we scoped out a spot for the pit and tried to figure out how to finish up our own gear prep. We did what we needed in the room for prep (water bottles, food and bike setup) then moved the car out to the pit area and walked back to the hotel room around 9pm. We did not do a very good job with nutrition for my needs beyond breakfast, I like to eat on a schedule and Bob just sort of goes with the flow a grazes and skips meals, I got the short end of that deal and Lunch and supper consisted of a handful of nuts, a keto biscuit, keto protein bar and a couple bottles of water. This would be evident as my race day progressed.
We took our regiment of supplements and a Claritin (we were both having some minor sinus issues with the Florida air). I went to sleep around 10pm and was out cold and sleep OK for most of the night but, kept waking up because the lights from the window were pouring in the room.
The alarm went off at 4 and the first order of business was to eat. Breakfast consisted of Keto biscuits, Justin's almond butter and 33 shake chia pouch with a coffee (no bulletproof coffee for me...I cannot handle that stuff) and a bottle of water.
We made our way to pit area around 5:15 and got the rest of our gear on (helmets gloves, put water on the bikes). It was around 50 degrees. I had on a full armed runners jacked over my shrug, cruzbike jersey, underarmour softball sliding shorts and leggings. Bob talked me into the full finger gloves which was a good idea since my fingers got very cold during the track segment.
I tried taking off with the lead group to hang behind Bob, but they slowly dropped me. By about 3/4 of the first lap I could not even see them anymore and I was basically riding by myself...I passed a couple people...a couple people passed me and then I was completely alone which was eerie given how many people were at the event.
I got very confused during the track segment since it was so dark. I wish we would have gotten out there the day before to ride the track which would have help with visualization in the dark. It was simply too hard to see where we were or had been. I thought we were still on the first lap when it turned out we were about 1.5 laps in. That is also about the time I realized that I had not started the course map on my Garmin before the race started so I had to do that on the fly. Good thing I was familiar with the interface or that would have been a nightmare. (A couple of days post-race we discovered that I actually did a bonus lap around the course...putting me about 10 minutes behind, and shorted 3.5 miles on my total distance)
The running jacket had to come off by the time the three laps were over, I was already starting to get too hot in it. I kept the fingered gloves. Not sure when I ditched those...but I definitely need more practice steering with my left hand because when I went to toss my gloves with my right I nearly did a death swerve right in front of the pit. After I huffed and puffed my way through the track I realized I was going to have to haul ass if I was going to stay on track for a decent century time without Bob. The course through town was really putting more load on me than I had expected. It did not help that a df had latched on to my back wheel and I was pulling him for a while.
At some point through town a male recumbent rider pulled up next to me and asked me what ride I was doing. He pulled ahead of me and told me to hop on...that was a much needed rest. I don't know who he was...but thank goodness for that little break. I do not remember where along the route Bob had stopped to wait for me, but we finally were together and started our way out to Frostproof. We had driven the route the day before which helped a ton. It was good to know where the hills where at and how many there were. I pushed harder on those since there were so few. It also helped to have Bob next to me reminding me that they were 'just intervals" and to "go get them".
The turn around in Frostproof was not nearly as chaotic as I thought it was going to be. From the stories it sounded like it was going to be mayhem. Probably for the 100 group...but the rest of us were so spread out that there was hardly anyone there when we go there.
The rest of the 100 was fairly uneventful. I managed it in around 5 hours...20 minutes better than I had managed on my fastest century at home.
I felt pretty good for about the next 25 miles...then things started to happen. My digestive track started cramping every time I drank water. That lasted through about mile 180. My feet kept going completely numb, which, for the most part, I could handle. There were a couple times where either the numbness started to cause minor cramping, or the act of putting blood back into my feet caused cramping.
Around 150 Bob noticed I had no power and made me go into the pit for a break. That was also about the time where I was getting confused by Bob's tail light thinking it was a break light. It was a good thing he suggested the stop. I was pretty dizzy when I got off the bike and almost fell over walking through the bathroom. I snagged a biscuit and some straight water and hid behind the truck in the shade for a minute. That made a huge difference.
We were back at it for a while. Bob would stop at the pit to grab fresh water bottles for me as I kept going down the road. He would catch up and then swap bottle. Overall the traffic was not bad. The only times it became dangerous were due to another racer. One of the 24hr diamond frame racers had a rolling sag, which, for the most part, was only annoying (handing off red Dixie cups, full bottles, and at one point a hot dog). We would pass him on the hill and then he'd catch up...we played leap frog for quite a while so his crew was pretty easy to spot after a while. At one point they had pulled off to the side of the road to attempt a bottle pass. Unfortunately he missed handled the exchange and the water bottle came careening my way. A quick glance in the mirror showed my choices were riding into the gravel shoulder on the right or into some oncoming traffic on the left. The bottle hit something and started to roll right just as I was approaching so I was able to pull off a small, quick jog to the left and not interfere too much with traffic. The second run-in with his crew was far more dangerous. They had been handing off items by slowing down in the traffic lane (and causing cars to line up behind them). On one such occasion they had a line of cars about 4 deep behind them (several laying on the horn). The oncoming 5th car clearly did not notice how slow the group was going. As it pulled up to the already slow group and of course, beside me, the driver slammed on the brakes...I heard a very loud tire squeal and out of the corner of my eye I could see the vehicle sliding toward me. That was the most frightening moment I have had on a bike to date. Eventually Bob managed our timing so we could get away from him and his crew.
Hours 8 and 9 had a lot of negotiating with myself. "Why on earth am I doing this? Why on earth do people do this? I am so tired. There is still so much time left. How am I ever going to finish this? You do not train 6 days a week to quit. You are here to show your kids that hard work pays off. You are here to show your kids that if they want something they have to see it through even if it is hard...especially if it is hard. Do not quit, even if you are going 5 mph, you finish this out."
I was so happy when they shuttled us on to the track. The first lap was pretty easy wattage...then knowing the end was coming soon I tried kicking it up. My feet were completely numb during the end. At some point in one of the last laps I reminded myself to look around and just enjoy the fact that I was riding a bike in Florida. The sun was setting and I could see the track signage in the distance with a crane flying overhead. Perfect picture to remember the day with. We went through the timing area one last time and made my way to the Cruzbike area. I felt great getting off the bike, but about five minutes after I had to sit down. I was dizzy, disoriented, weak, and felt like I either needed to throw up or find a bathroom.
I sat for probably 20 minutes, tried to get up and after a minute had to sit back down. It had to be some combination of dehydration and over heating. That continued for a couple of hours afterwards. I made my way back to the hotel for a shower after the awards ceremony. I never really felt good enough to eat anything. I had been trying to talk myself into eating something, but everything sounded horrible...including water. By 9 I felt OK enough to sleep. I woke up every two hours needing to go to the bathroom. I never knew my system could hold that much fluid. I was so hot all night, like the way you feel when you are sunburned everywhere. I turned down the air conditioner to 68 and was still roasting all night. By 9am I finally felt I could eat something even though I still didn't really want to. No more dizzy spells. After breakfast I finally felt somewhat normal. Tired. Sore in weird places. But much better than the night before. My hands, face, and neck are sun burned and swollen even though they had liberal amounts of sun screen (SPF 50+) on them. I am thankful that I carried chapstick on the bike or my lips would be suffering as well.
Post race...so thankful to have Bob with me during the ride. For him that was basically a recovery wattage ride...he really made that race all about me and helped to keep me focused and probably prevented a number of poor choices on my part (hello hydration, get off the bike when you start going crazy, make smart decisions about pacing...so many). I would love to see what he could do if he focused on his own ride for an event like that. He has always been able to rack up big mileage and really push himself.
We had a number of things that we did not do quite right...lessons for another time. You don't know what you don't know in some instances. Over planning some areas and not planning other areas enough. As a first go at any sort of distance event I feel good about how far I was able to go. Official mileage: 221.9. 11:52:04 hours
The day before the race flew by pretty quickly. After sleeping in from travel lag, we had a decent breakfast at a local greasy spoon and then headed off to drive the 100 mile course. That scouting became very beneficial during the race. The effort put us back at the hotel around 2, just in time to meet up with the Cruzbike crew. After a little set up (read that as me keeping Bob out of the weeds helping with all the bikes) we were ready to head off with them for the 11 mile loop test ride. Post ride, we scoped out a spot for the pit and tried to figure out how to finish up our own gear prep. We did what we needed in the room for prep (water bottles, food and bike setup) then moved the car out to the pit area and walked back to the hotel room around 9pm. We did not do a very good job with nutrition for my needs beyond breakfast, I like to eat on a schedule and Bob just sort of goes with the flow a grazes and skips meals, I got the short end of that deal and Lunch and supper consisted of a handful of nuts, a keto biscuit, keto protein bar and a couple bottles of water. This would be evident as my race day progressed.
We took our regiment of supplements and a Claritin (we were both having some minor sinus issues with the Florida air). I went to sleep around 10pm and was out cold and sleep OK for most of the night but, kept waking up because the lights from the window were pouring in the room.
The alarm went off at 4 and the first order of business was to eat. Breakfast consisted of Keto biscuits, Justin's almond butter and 33 shake chia pouch with a coffee (no bulletproof coffee for me...I cannot handle that stuff) and a bottle of water.
We made our way to pit area around 5:15 and got the rest of our gear on (helmets gloves, put water on the bikes). It was around 50 degrees. I had on a full armed runners jacked over my shrug, cruzbike jersey, underarmour softball sliding shorts and leggings. Bob talked me into the full finger gloves which was a good idea since my fingers got very cold during the track segment.
I tried taking off with the lead group to hang behind Bob, but they slowly dropped me. By about 3/4 of the first lap I could not even see them anymore and I was basically riding by myself...I passed a couple people...a couple people passed me and then I was completely alone which was eerie given how many people were at the event.
I got very confused during the track segment since it was so dark. I wish we would have gotten out there the day before to ride the track which would have help with visualization in the dark. It was simply too hard to see where we were or had been. I thought we were still on the first lap when it turned out we were about 1.5 laps in. That is also about the time I realized that I had not started the course map on my Garmin before the race started so I had to do that on the fly. Good thing I was familiar with the interface or that would have been a nightmare. (A couple of days post-race we discovered that I actually did a bonus lap around the course...putting me about 10 minutes behind, and shorted 3.5 miles on my total distance)
The running jacket had to come off by the time the three laps were over, I was already starting to get too hot in it. I kept the fingered gloves. Not sure when I ditched those...but I definitely need more practice steering with my left hand because when I went to toss my gloves with my right I nearly did a death swerve right in front of the pit. After I huffed and puffed my way through the track I realized I was going to have to haul ass if I was going to stay on track for a decent century time without Bob. The course through town was really putting more load on me than I had expected. It did not help that a df had latched on to my back wheel and I was pulling him for a while.
At some point through town a male recumbent rider pulled up next to me and asked me what ride I was doing. He pulled ahead of me and told me to hop on...that was a much needed rest. I don't know who he was...but thank goodness for that little break. I do not remember where along the route Bob had stopped to wait for me, but we finally were together and started our way out to Frostproof. We had driven the route the day before which helped a ton. It was good to know where the hills where at and how many there were. I pushed harder on those since there were so few. It also helped to have Bob next to me reminding me that they were 'just intervals" and to "go get them".
The turn around in Frostproof was not nearly as chaotic as I thought it was going to be. From the stories it sounded like it was going to be mayhem. Probably for the 100 group...but the rest of us were so spread out that there was hardly anyone there when we go there.
The rest of the 100 was fairly uneventful. I managed it in around 5 hours...20 minutes better than I had managed on my fastest century at home.
I felt pretty good for about the next 25 miles...then things started to happen. My digestive track started cramping every time I drank water. That lasted through about mile 180. My feet kept going completely numb, which, for the most part, I could handle. There were a couple times where either the numbness started to cause minor cramping, or the act of putting blood back into my feet caused cramping.
Around 150 Bob noticed I had no power and made me go into the pit for a break. That was also about the time where I was getting confused by Bob's tail light thinking it was a break light. It was a good thing he suggested the stop. I was pretty dizzy when I got off the bike and almost fell over walking through the bathroom. I snagged a biscuit and some straight water and hid behind the truck in the shade for a minute. That made a huge difference.
We were back at it for a while. Bob would stop at the pit to grab fresh water bottles for me as I kept going down the road. He would catch up and then swap bottle. Overall the traffic was not bad. The only times it became dangerous were due to another racer. One of the 24hr diamond frame racers had a rolling sag, which, for the most part, was only annoying (handing off red Dixie cups, full bottles, and at one point a hot dog). We would pass him on the hill and then he'd catch up...we played leap frog for quite a while so his crew was pretty easy to spot after a while. At one point they had pulled off to the side of the road to attempt a bottle pass. Unfortunately he missed handled the exchange and the water bottle came careening my way. A quick glance in the mirror showed my choices were riding into the gravel shoulder on the right or into some oncoming traffic on the left. The bottle hit something and started to roll right just as I was approaching so I was able to pull off a small, quick jog to the left and not interfere too much with traffic. The second run-in with his crew was far more dangerous. They had been handing off items by slowing down in the traffic lane (and causing cars to line up behind them). On one such occasion they had a line of cars about 4 deep behind them (several laying on the horn). The oncoming 5th car clearly did not notice how slow the group was going. As it pulled up to the already slow group and of course, beside me, the driver slammed on the brakes...I heard a very loud tire squeal and out of the corner of my eye I could see the vehicle sliding toward me. That was the most frightening moment I have had on a bike to date. Eventually Bob managed our timing so we could get away from him and his crew.
Hours 8 and 9 had a lot of negotiating with myself. "Why on earth am I doing this? Why on earth do people do this? I am so tired. There is still so much time left. How am I ever going to finish this? You do not train 6 days a week to quit. You are here to show your kids that hard work pays off. You are here to show your kids that if they want something they have to see it through even if it is hard...especially if it is hard. Do not quit, even if you are going 5 mph, you finish this out."
I was so happy when they shuttled us on to the track. The first lap was pretty easy wattage...then knowing the end was coming soon I tried kicking it up. My feet were completely numb during the end. At some point in one of the last laps I reminded myself to look around and just enjoy the fact that I was riding a bike in Florida. The sun was setting and I could see the track signage in the distance with a crane flying overhead. Perfect picture to remember the day with. We went through the timing area one last time and made my way to the Cruzbike area. I felt great getting off the bike, but about five minutes after I had to sit down. I was dizzy, disoriented, weak, and felt like I either needed to throw up or find a bathroom.
I sat for probably 20 minutes, tried to get up and after a minute had to sit back down. It had to be some combination of dehydration and over heating. That continued for a couple of hours afterwards. I made my way back to the hotel for a shower after the awards ceremony. I never really felt good enough to eat anything. I had been trying to talk myself into eating something, but everything sounded horrible...including water. By 9 I felt OK enough to sleep. I woke up every two hours needing to go to the bathroom. I never knew my system could hold that much fluid. I was so hot all night, like the way you feel when you are sunburned everywhere. I turned down the air conditioner to 68 and was still roasting all night. By 9am I finally felt I could eat something even though I still didn't really want to. No more dizzy spells. After breakfast I finally felt somewhat normal. Tired. Sore in weird places. But much better than the night before. My hands, face, and neck are sun burned and swollen even though they had liberal amounts of sun screen (SPF 50+) on them. I am thankful that I carried chapstick on the bike or my lips would be suffering as well.
Post race...so thankful to have Bob with me during the ride. For him that was basically a recovery wattage ride...he really made that race all about me and helped to keep me focused and probably prevented a number of poor choices on my part (hello hydration, get off the bike when you start going crazy, make smart decisions about pacing...so many). I would love to see what he could do if he focused on his own ride for an event like that. He has always been able to rack up big mileage and really push himself.
We had a number of things that we did not do quite right...lessons for another time. You don't know what you don't know in some instances. Over planning some areas and not planning other areas enough. As a first go at any sort of distance event I feel good about how far I was able to go. Official mileage: 221.9. 11:52:04 hours
