Numbers
I might be wrong in how I'm interpreting my WKO+ chart below, but I think it is telling me with my ATL score (Accumulated Training Load, or the short-term effects from recent work-outs) that I should be pretty darn tired today, way more tired than I've ever been this entire season.
However, I'm guessing that either my understanding of the software is wrong, or it just doesn't know how to properly handle very large numbers that are dramatically out of the ordinary for the person the chart is generated for. Crazy numbers like 191 miles (though two of my companions recorded 2 or 3 fewer miles on their Garmins), 9hrs 48 min of riding time at a 19.5 mph average, and well over 7,000 calories burned (which equates to about 8 medium sized Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough DQ Blizzards).
But...I don't feel too bad at the moment. Aside from a pretty raw & chafed inner thigh area that might cause me to let a scream if I sat upon my saddle right now, I actually had to fight the temptation to get out again and enjoy another beautiful weather today as I'm not overly fatigued and the aches and pains overall are quite minor. However, I'm pretty sure if it wasn't for Chris, Chris, and Dan yesterday, I'd be in a world of hurt right now.
Novice
I now have a good number of races under my belt, but yesterday was my first ever Brevet. It also happened to be of a distance more than twice as long as I've logged in any single ride all season. So, it probably goes without saying that I was a bit unprepared when I showed up in Westfield Mass at 4:30 AM. The vast majority of the two dozen or so starters came armed with all sorts of extras one doesn't see when lining up for the typical Cat 4 road race. Lots of aero bars (not for speed, but for the added comfort one gets by altering your position while out on long rides), lots of handle bar mounted bags and/or camelbacks to carry extra equipment (Brevets are self-supported, so if you break down 100 miles from the start, you better be able to make a fix to get back on the road), lots of lights (as the ride started well before sun up, and for some, it would end after sun down), and perhaps most importantly, clear plastic handlbar mounted holders for cue sheets and/or Garmin GPS units pre-programmed with the course. Unlike a road race or even most charity rides, there are no marshalls, pace cars, or even road markings. If you don't follow the cue sheet or GPS, well then you're going to be doing a heck of a lot of extra miles until you can figure out how to get back on the course.
I showed up with nothing more than I'd take on a normal pre-dawn jaunt on the bike, except for four pages of cue sheets that I tucked into my back pocket. It was going to be a VERY long day if I had to constantly fumble with the sheets in my pocket for each and every turn, and even longer if I had a mechanical issue aside from a single tube flatting (which is all that I was equipped to handle). So once I found that the front group of guys had a programmed Garmin (Chris) and the other two guys had camelbacks full of stuff (two guys from team Benidorm, Chris and Dan) my anxiety significantly subsided.
No Free Ride
Unfortunately my ride security came at an expense. Over the first two and a half hours ( a time during which I saw one of the most amazingly red tinged clouds during a sunrise ) we were cruising along at 19.5 mph, and during that time we lost another four or five riders to get down to our crew of 4. I didn't feel too bad, and I even got a huge gap on the Chris's and Dan heading up one of the few tough hills of the day, so I figured the pace was going to settle down once the early AM coffee ran its course.
Boy was I wrong! In the little chit chat that I did all day (I was even less sociable than usual as eventually all energy not spent focusing on riding was putting my ride in jeopardy), I learned that all three guys were Brevet veterans. Dan seemed the least experienced having *only* completed 200k brevets before Saturday, whereas the Chris's had numerous brevets and ultra-endurance efforts where they've been in the saddle for 12, 18, and even 24 hours at a time.
These guys had pacing down to a science, and it turns out that 19.5 mph wasn't just a hot start -- it was the pace to be held for the entire 190 miles! There didn't seem to be a whole lot of scenery to take in on the course we took (Devil's Hopyard, Old Saybrook, and maybe Essex being the only three spots that I recall that I might later want to come back to revisit), but even if we were passing through something as beautiful as the Grand Canyon, I would be hard pressed to tell you much about it today.
As the miles kept on adding up at exactly 19.5 mph, my focus became more and more narrow. By about mile 150, I had devolved into a parasitic wheel sucker, only taking at most 1 minute pulls (as compared to the seemingly effortless 5 or more minute pulls by Chris, as well as the many minute pulls from the Benidorm duo).
Given that a Brevet is not truly a race (it is timed, but there are no winners or losers recognized, just finishers), you'd probably expect that I'd eventually ease up and ride solo. It was a nice late summer day and I was off on roads new to me, so if there's no prize at the end, why not drift off the back and soak up the surroundings?
The answer is "fear". At this point I was so spent I couldn't imagine trying to navigate by myself and a cue sheet, and I had become so focused on the 190 mile total that I think I would have started yelling obscenities had I gone off track and tacked on more miles. I desperately needed my navigator and my pit crew, so I did my best to ignore the suffering to stay as protected as I could be focused on the wheel in front of me. (My focus was only momentarily interrupted by the occasional bump in the road that served as a not-so-gentle reminder that a layer of skin had been worn away from my inner thigh).
It was only a mile and a half from the finish where I finally came off the pace line. My chain for some reason unexpectedly dropped from the big gear to the little gear, and I fumbled around with my shifters as my brain slowly emerged from the fog. By the time I had things going again, the guys were a good third of a mile ahead of me. I realized at that point how much of a free ride I had been getting in their draft as I had to put all I had left in me not lose site of them. While we were back on roads we had traversed earlier, I still had no idea where I was as we passed through earlier while it was still pitch dark. I lost them twice, briefly after two turns but fortunataly quickly regained a line of site to them. Finally I saw them easing up, and it was for a reason that surely must have brought a smile to my face -- The New Horizon Sports Bike Shop & the finish line!
On the drive home I felt pretty proud of myself. Despite the fact that I didn't do too much to help over the last 30 miles, the other guys seemed surprised with my performance given that the distance was nearly 100 miles longer than anything I've done this year. Would I do it again? I think so...but...only if I arrive better equipped in case I find myself alone, or, if I arrive better trained to hang with a pit crew and navigation system as fast as the ones I found myself with yesterday.
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