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music and race
Jun. 3rd, 2019 08:50 pmHere's maybe something more interesting before the lousy stuff.. I paid for a real version of ableton a while back and have been messing around with it a bit. I had a chunk of time to make a tiny amount of progress on a couple of tunes. check out a couple short clips here if you're so inclined: soundcloud.com/jcharles00/couplethings
So the race.. It went pretty poorly. Link to the Strava report here: www.strava.com/activities/2416000026 I mostly attribute it to poor nutrition choices.. I made these rice cakes from a pretty common recipe.. but they had a ton of cream cheese in them. (for calories) The dairy seems to not have sat well on my stomach. I was already having GI problems before leaving the dorm.
I followed a teammate for the first 20 miles at pretty fast speeds - over 20 a lot of the time. By the time I got smart and sat up from that, my stomach was hurting again. The climbing was harder than I'd remembered. The descending was awesome, but there was always a cautious (slow) person in front of me and I couldn't take full advantage. I don't think anything I was eating was actually making it to my bloodstream. after the first few climbs I was pretty worn out.
I was struggling by the time I got to the first SAG stop at 65 miles. I had made pretty ok time, averaged 15 mph, but I stayed there for over an hour, a lot of that time in the bathroom. (thank god they had a bathroom! and thank goodness I packed a lot of wet-wipes) I ate some of the real food they provided, drank a coke and a bunch of water and chilled out.
When I got back on the road, I still felt like crap, and the heat of the day was really on. I think it got up to 92 (though the garmin shows over 100?) and there was not a cloud in the sky, and not much shade to speak of. From the SAG to mile 99 where I stopped was terrible. I averaged 10mph. I started to feel like my legs were coming back a little, but the heat was killing me, and I was going so slow that I got really worried about water. I was taking shade stops wherever I could find them, and kept bumping into a few other groups doing the same. at about mile 94, I was starting to feel dizzy, and was really starting to think about bailing. I made it to the unofficial water stop at 99 and someone else managed to get enough cell signal to call for pickup, so I figured I ought to go as well. Had I stayed in, it would have been another 22 miles to the official water stop, and then another 30 before the next SAG, and then another 50 for the last l
As I well knew, pickup isn't exactly fun. it took over an hour for someone to get out to us, and then another hour drive looking for another rider before dropping us off at another SAG to wait for a ride back to Emporia. I will say that the ride along the course in the Jeep really made me glad that I didn't attempt it, because it was rough. The Jeep ride was also kind of nice because the guy told us a lot of interesting stories about the area. (I say us, the guy sitting next to me, a late 60's Purdue grad/chemical engineer, was passing out/getting sick so I don't think he was paying attention. haha. Thankfully the other guy that stopped with us who was talking about puking up blood was in a different truck) Anyway, there were a lot of things I'd like to investigate further - he mentioned a neighboring cattle town that was razed after a guy got shot for breaking a law about crossing the railroad tracks. Apparently early pioneers got paid to build stone walls everywhere by the government as a defense in case the civil war made it out that far. There were a lot of cool stone structures surviving, and I was a little jealous that Indiana doesn't have much that cool - but it made sense, we did log cabins because we had trees, they just had rock. The guy also offered me some of the KFC he had in the back. lol.
Anyway, it sucks, but whatever. I saw some friends I hadn't seen in a while. Got to pet a puppy and some kittens, got to see some more of the flint hills, met some nice locals, etc. That said, I really don't want to ride a bike for a while, and I'm not ever doing this race again. I had kind of hoped for redemption this time, but I think I just need to accept that I can't do it.
So the race.. It went pretty poorly. Link to the Strava report here: www.strava.com/activities/2416000026 I mostly attribute it to poor nutrition choices.. I made these rice cakes from a pretty common recipe.. but they had a ton of cream cheese in them. (for calories) The dairy seems to not have sat well on my stomach. I was already having GI problems before leaving the dorm.
I followed a teammate for the first 20 miles at pretty fast speeds - over 20 a lot of the time. By the time I got smart and sat up from that, my stomach was hurting again. The climbing was harder than I'd remembered. The descending was awesome, but there was always a cautious (slow) person in front of me and I couldn't take full advantage. I don't think anything I was eating was actually making it to my bloodstream. after the first few climbs I was pretty worn out.
I was struggling by the time I got to the first SAG stop at 65 miles. I had made pretty ok time, averaged 15 mph, but I stayed there for over an hour, a lot of that time in the bathroom. (thank god they had a bathroom! and thank goodness I packed a lot of wet-wipes) I ate some of the real food they provided, drank a coke and a bunch of water and chilled out.
When I got back on the road, I still felt like crap, and the heat of the day was really on. I think it got up to 92 (though the garmin shows over 100?) and there was not a cloud in the sky, and not much shade to speak of. From the SAG to mile 99 where I stopped was terrible. I averaged 10mph. I started to feel like my legs were coming back a little, but the heat was killing me, and I was going so slow that I got really worried about water. I was taking shade stops wherever I could find them, and kept bumping into a few other groups doing the same. at about mile 94, I was starting to feel dizzy, and was really starting to think about bailing. I made it to the unofficial water stop at 99 and someone else managed to get enough cell signal to call for pickup, so I figured I ought to go as well. Had I stayed in, it would have been another 22 miles to the official water stop, and then another 30 before the next SAG, and then another 50 for the last l
As I well knew, pickup isn't exactly fun. it took over an hour for someone to get out to us, and then another hour drive looking for another rider before dropping us off at another SAG to wait for a ride back to Emporia. I will say that the ride along the course in the Jeep really made me glad that I didn't attempt it, because it was rough. The Jeep ride was also kind of nice because the guy told us a lot of interesting stories about the area. (I say us, the guy sitting next to me, a late 60's Purdue grad/chemical engineer, was passing out/getting sick so I don't think he was paying attention. haha. Thankfully the other guy that stopped with us who was talking about puking up blood was in a different truck) Anyway, there were a lot of things I'd like to investigate further - he mentioned a neighboring cattle town that was razed after a guy got shot for breaking a law about crossing the railroad tracks. Apparently early pioneers got paid to build stone walls everywhere by the government as a defense in case the civil war made it out that far. There were a lot of cool stone structures surviving, and I was a little jealous that Indiana doesn't have much that cool - but it made sense, we did log cabins because we had trees, they just had rock. The guy also offered me some of the KFC he had in the back. lol.
Anyway, it sucks, but whatever. I saw some friends I hadn't seen in a while. Got to pet a puppy and some kittens, got to see some more of the flint hills, met some nice locals, etc. That said, I really don't want to ride a bike for a while, and I'm not ever doing this race again. I had kind of hoped for redemption this time, but I think I just need to accept that I can't do it.