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Monday, July 06, 2009
We set out to do a 100 miles on Sunday for no real reason other than I had no races planned and I needed some endurance mileage. I selected a course that was put together by another club member. Word to the wise: plot the course profile yourself and do not believe a word that is written on the cue sheet!!!
We got going later than we had planned but we had a gorgeous day for it except for the 12 mph wind. I had some reservations about leaving so late and worried about getting back before dark. I packed a light even though I saw some others weren't bothering. Anyway off into the wilds of NY we went for miles and miles on a double yellow road. We were all so cheery that first forty - I remember it well. Even the unrelenting traffic didn't dampen our spirits - until about the 40 mile mark. WHEN THE FIRST GINORMOUS HILL HIT. The cue sheet promised an EASY ride with 1-2% grade for 90% of the ride. HA HA. Yeah that was accurate for the first 40 miles. We were hanging with a 19-20 mph average at that point so we were believers and convinced we were going to make 5-6 hours no problem. Okay. The cue sheet also promised a 6 mile climb. No special comment on the climb other than it came at mile 38 or so. In my pea brain I was thinking well if its an EASY ride the climb will be a sustained 3-4% max. Ummmm. Somehow GUNK MOUNTAIN didn't jump out at me when I first reviewed that sheet. Try six effing miles of continuous 4%-12% grade. It's never good when you are passing scenic overlooks with people pointing and probably saying "look at the nuts". The kind of climb where someone humanely spray-painted "you're at the top" on the road. After logging almost 40 miles on flat to spaced steep rollers - I was not in the mood for that kind of climbing. We survived and almost passed out took a break at the top at the entrance to the park. Once we got going again there was a lot of head shaking as we saw there was still one more steep section to get over - bitch and moan bitch and moan. Then the luscious descent which was tremendous with more scenic overlooks that we flew by - even had a switchback ala Alp D'Huez or something. Very scenic. Went downhill for awhile thinking singing "hooray the worst is behind us". Ummm no. The rest of the 50 or so miles was rolling with steep 5-9% rolls all the way. All country roads. One after another - non stop rollers - steep out of the saddle rollers. I should of counted them.
At one point we completely missed a turn and went 3 miles in the wrong direction over more rollers - unnecessarily - twice. Thankfully we realized the error then and not at like mile 10. After some minor bitching back and forth (yes we were starting to unravel at mile 65) we turned it around, back tracked and got going on the right road. I'll have to say the cue sheet kind of left a lot to be desired in terms of clear direction. NOT TO MENTION NO MENTION AT ALL OF THE FUCKING EXTENT OF THE CLIMBING. At about mile 75 my legs were not - working - anymore. I was still turning over the pedals and standing up the hills but I could feel the pulling in my calves, my ankles, my toes and a not so good twinge in the quads. I was not recovering at the top of the climbs at all. I was the only female but we were all suffering. I started drinking water like a fiend worried that I was going to pull a muscle. To say I was crabby would be an understatement. Funny that all chatter had ceased at that point. We stopped to regroup and pop a sick amount of Advil.
We arrived at another intersection that was not clearly marked. AT ALL. It was literally a 3 spoke wheel. We were supposed to make a right. But there were literally 2 right options. The hard right was up a cliff. Not kidding. So we came to the conclusion that the street sign that said "Mountain Road" went with that turn. We all agreed that it couldn't possibly be the hard right turn aka Mountain Road because THE IDIOT THAT MADE THE CUE SHEET WOULD HAVE MENTIONED THAT WE MIGHT NEED ROPES, CARABINERS AND HARNESSES. So we came to a consensus that he had to of meant the OTHER right turn ( even if the correct street sign was kinda of pointing up the hill). Someone even went so far as to state that some jokesters had probably moved the sign. All logic had left at that point. All we knew was that we were not going up that GODDAMN MOUNTAIN ROAD. So off we went. We kind of ended up being on the road we choose a lot longer than we should have been and I could see the heads turning (mine included) to try and read mailboxes to confirm the road name. Eventually we all saw that we were CLEARLY ON THE WRONG ROAD as we were standing to heave it over yet another dig. By this time we were losing daylight quite rapidly. It was coming up on 8:00 pm. Thankfully we came to an intersection of a real highway - the wrong highway - but a highway nonetheless. My worst fear was having to turn around and slog it back up the road we just tackled. I knew I would refuse to do it. That I would sit down in the grass and bawl my eyes out before I would go back up that god awful road that could only be worse in reverse. Yup we were not in the right place. We should have been done in 10 miles. As crazy as it still seems we realized a little too late that we were supposed to go up that insane hill d'oh.
Luckily there was a little corner store at the intersection and we sent someone in for some minor clarification - like HOW THE FUCK DO WE GET OUT OF HERE and DO YOU HAVE A CAR?????. While that was going down I realized that my light didn't work - the batteries were dead - of course. I made a brief attempt to use by GPS - forget it - I have no idea how to work it and truth be told its really hard to see. The teeny bopper girls manning the store didn't have answers. They didn't know how to get us back. We didn't know how to get us back. We couldn't even call anyone and explain how to come get us. We were in the BOONDOCKS in an unknown town in another state and at least 2 hours from my house by car. MINOR PANIC. We eventually spied a couple heading to the store and we kind of swarmed them. THANK THE GOOD LORD ABOVE SHE KNEW EXACTLY WHERE WE WANTED TO GO. She sent us to the west - we were all thinking we needed to go east so HELLO thank god she came along. Of course you know the next part --- it was all up hill --- 4-8% grade for 3 miles. It was getting darker and darker. Once we hit the top and I saw the diamond shaped sign that tells truckers to shift into a low gear I could have shed a tear. Down we went a 5 mile descent in the dark. I was cursing everyone. I wasn't ready to die. I couldn't see where I was going and I knew no one could see me. The lady said to ignore the highway merges and look for the light. She said it wasn't far but we'd been pedaling forever. We all kind of yelled "there's the light" because we finally with great relief hit the light. She said just go left at the light and you'll hit the Jersey border. So there we were at this crazy intersection at the base of mountain in the dark with all these lanes of crazy going home July 4 traffic converging and we had to get across. I still hadn't grasped that we were less than a mile from the cars. We made it across in one piece - thank you drivers - and I was literally beside myself with exhaustion as we hit the parking lot in NEW JERSEY at 9:00 pm. Just a weird mixture of tiredness, anger, joy and relief.
* if you made it to the end of this post - you are a champ! Just wanted to mention that I just now noticed on the cue sheet that the course was rated A-1. I don't know why I didn't see that before. I think I saw it and thought they were taking about the road quality rather than the difficulty - d'oh
