More Cycling Adventures

Oh, geez. I don't know how people work full time jobs, go to school, train for ironmans and ultras, and still have time to blog. I have a hard time keeping up with me, much less blogging and other bloggers. So, dear bloggers. It's not that I'm not thinking about you. I'm obviously just not as adept at managing my time and my other responsibilities as the rest of you seem to be.

But that's really not the point of this post.

I'm currently five days, and counting, away from my first "A" race of the season. To be honest, I've only got two triathlons on my calendar this year and both of them are "A" races: the New Balance Half Ironman and Ironman Canada. Of course, I add other races in as my schedule and training allows, but they are all done as training and not really as races (unless my coach tells me to go for it).

Two weeks ago, I had my longest ride of the year, so far. I began by riding my usual "flat" 15 miles. Along the way, I finally realized, though I'd known it all along but forgot, that this day was the day of the Rainier to Ruston relay. I had done this relay last year with my Y team members and I knew that they were doing it again this year. I was excited that I might get to see some of them and continued to make my way to South Prairie.

Once I arrived, I chatted it up with several of the people standing around waiting for the first ultra-marathoners. They had started earlier than the rest and the first ones were expected around 9:37. Since I had arrived shortly before that, I hung around for a bit. However, by 9:45, they hadn't arrived yet, so I decided to hit the exchange point closer to the start and hope I didn't miss my friends. Unfortunately, I did miss Rob.

To leave South Prairie and get to my next destination, I chose to climb the infamous Dog Hill. This time, I managed to climb it without getting into my granniest gear. In fact, I still had two gears left. I felt really good about that. Of course, my cadence was quite slow, but my legs weren't toast when I was done, so I saw that as a good sign.

Speaking of signs, after I crested the hill and went over a few easy (when did they become easy?) rollers, I began seeing signs that said, "ROAD CLOSED AHEAD." I wasn't sure if that meant there was construction, water over the roadway, or something else going on. I kept pedaling, though, as I didn't see any detour signs, just the ominous "Road Closed" warning.


Evenutally, the meaning and the reason became clear. With all the rain we had been having that week, there was a sizeable mudslide, complete with trees, rocks, mud, and debris completing covering both sides of the road. It wasn't impassable, so I dismounted my bike and walked it across the mud. There was too much debris in the way to ride it.
In retrospect, I should have carried the bike, rather than roll it through the mud. Not only did ooey gooey mud get all over the tires, I then had issues with small stones getting wedged in the brakes and making themselves known on my tire rims. The sound was like fingernails on a chalkboard. Not pleasant. Not having any plain water, I resorted to using my Raspberry Crystal Light water to rinse my rims (sticky stuff). In addition, I have speedplay cleats and they do NOT take kindly to being walked through the mud. Getting clipped in for the rest of the day became a chore!

Eventually I arrived in Wilkeson where Michelle's husband, Eric, was waiting for one of his teammates to come through the exchange point. We chatted for a bit and since none of the relay members had arrived yet, I hoped I might yet get to see Darcy and Michelle. (I later learned that Darcy had to withdraw due to a bad back.) After a few minutes, I decided it was best if I kept riding since that was my goal for the day.

I hopped back on my bike and started riding towards the next exchange point. Along the way, I kept hoping that my friends weren't in one of the cars coming down the hill and that I would miss them. I also wondered who was running that leg. As I traveled, I offered up encouragement to all the runners I saw along the way. Many of them offered it back as they were obviously running downhill while I climbed uphill.

It wasn't long and I was in Carbonado. I only got to spend a few minutes with them, but it was long enough to snap some pictures and hand out some hugs. I had to laugh as Sonya gave me a hug in greeting and stepped back commenting, "Oooh! You're all sweaty!" I'm quite certain she was all sweaty by the end of the day as well. Here is a pic of a few of the "Bustin' for Ruston" team gals. That's Michelle in the center with Sonya on (our) the left and Jenny on the right.

When I detailed my plans for riding up to Greenwater and beyond, Darcy told me the pass had been opened, which meant there would be more traffic. As an alternative, i could keep going along the road I was on. It would continue to climb, but it wasn't an unbearable climb. It was simply steady grinding away. To avoid the traffic, I opted to keep going. It wasn't long before Margaret came down the path and was relieved by Jenny. Then the team was busy collecting their gear and themselves to head off to the next exchange point. I bid them good luck and farewell and continued up into the hills.

The next stop was the bridge at Fairfax. This is what it looks like looking DOWN at the trees. I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure the trees are a good 150 feet below the bridge. All I can say for certain is, it's a looooong way down and makes my heart skip a beat!


Only wanting to stop long enough to collect pictures for the blog I can't seem to keep updated, I continued my climb into the foothills. It was a great day for riding. It wasn't raining, the sun wasn't too hot, and there wasn't a lot of traffic. There was one asshole along the way, however, that was annoyed because he had to wait about 10 seconds in order to pass me. I kid you not, this jerk made sure when he did pass that he got as close to me as he could without actually hitting me! Well, I don't take those kinds of things lightly and I let him know I thought he was number one in my book. Grrrrr....redneck dumb @%#$#@!!!

Okay, so I got over my ire and kept pedaling. Before too long I came to the part of the river where I could snap the following shot.



Not much past this point was the Carbon River Ranger Station. I stopped at the gate and asked if bicycles had to pay the $5 entry fee. Yup. I further inquired if they took debit cards. Nope. Alrighty then, this is where I turn around. At that point, one of the rangers informed me there was a slide a mile or so up the road that I wouldn't be able to get past, so it really wasn't worth my effort or my money. I thanked them and left.

The trip DOWN the hills was a major blast. I got to go fast. VERY fast. The road was totally straight, but the curves weren't too dangerous so I could let go. For one of my miles, I actually averaged over 30 mph! WOOOOOHOOOOO!

Well, all good things must come to an end and eventually, I found myself back in familar territory. By this time, I only had 5 hours of riding under my belt and my coach wanted me doing 8, so I decided to go tackle Mud Mountain Dam Road. Remember, this is a hill that climbs 500 feet in 2 miles with an average grade of five percent. Climbing that kind of hill when you've already been in the saddle for several hours is...well, tough. But I did it and I was darned proud of myself for doing it!

After that, it was back down Mud Mountain. Still needing to add time to my ride, I rode into Enumclaw, then back to South Prairie by way of Buckley. I stopped briefly to use the facilities and headed back towards Orting and home. Except when I got to Orting, I still didn't have enough time in, so I went back to South Prairie.

Now the route between Orting and South Prairie is one I travel frequently. One of the common sights along this part of the trail is the cow pasture you see below. There is really nothing quite like the smell of fresh manure on a early morning ride. Honest. It doesn't smell like "shit." It smells, well, like manure. It's different. Sure, sometimes it can be overpowering, but the other times it just smells like animals. Okay, I give up trying to explain. By now you already think I'm weird.

A not so common sight, but not an unusual one along this portion of the trail, are the buffalo, who share a pasture with the birds below. That's right, the buffalo share space with emus. Now, that's odd.

Well, after my trip back to South Prairie, I knew all I needed to do now was head towards home. As I got closer and closer, I realized I had some serious miles under my belt. All I needed to do was go to the end of the trail and then head home and I'd have completed the full ironman bike distance in that day. Funny thing is that when I hit the turn off for my home, my bike went on automatic pilot and there I was. Home. Nine hours and 108.9 miles later. I missed the Ironman distance by a measly 3.1 miles. Ah, well, I have several more weeks of training in front of me. I'm pretty sure I'll be covering the distance soon enough.

Of course, my day didn't end there. I had to do my transition run, too. Of course, I only had to do 15 minutes, but once I hit the point where I could turn round at 7-1/2 minutes, I felt good enough, that I kept running for another minute and a half. At 9 minutes I turned around and walked for 60 seconds. I figured it would take me longer to get back than it did to go out. Not today, it didn't. The entire round trip took me 18 minutes. I actually got faster on the way back in.

Wow. Something in my training is working. Some of you think it is focus. Maybe it is. I think it's just focusing on being consistent and following through even on some days when I really don't want to. It appears to be paying off. We'll see, though as I have my first race in a few days. More on that later (and I'm hoping not a LOT later).