adminLead-up:
I mostly took the week off from running and biking, with only one 6 mile workout at the track on Wednesday. I got one sports massage (Thursday) and one relaxing massage (Friday).
Saturday:
The plan for the day was a PMC “reimagined ride”, which basically means “do-it-yourself”, create-your-own route because of COVID.
Mike, the leader of the Bain PMC team, is awesome at mapping out routes and sharing them with the team on Strava.
For today’s ride, the plan he created for the team was:
28 miles, start at Mike’s house in Newton to Prasad’s house in Hopkinton (another member of the team)
56 mile loop, then have lunch at Prasad’s
26 miles back to Newton
Total: 110 miles with 5,000 feet of elevation gain
Planned rolling time was 6:30am, so I woke up at 4:15am.
Even though I always lay out all my gear and supplies the night before, and I always try to hurry up, it ALWAYS takes me a full hour to get out the door. Mike was providing bagels for the team starting at 5:45, so I got there for that, to also have plenty of time to apply sunscreen, put air in tires, and get ready to roll.
When I got there, there were already a ton more people than I expected. More than any training ride I had done with the team. I quickly found out that a lot of people from the Bain NYC office come up annually to ride with the team in PMC. Mike’s driveway is very steep, so Steve O was waiting at the bottom of Mike’s very steep driveway and said he didn’t want to waste energy going up to the house or garage area where the rest of the team was gathering. I thought that was very funny. I passed on Erika’s message that the ex-JHers say hello, and he gave his regards back. He said when he left JH he assumed he would end up at MM, but somehow ended up not even talking to them.
There were 10 people trying to get bagels, but only one toaster. Would have loved to toast it, but ain’t nobody got time for that, so I enjoyed a non-toasted blueberry bagel with cream cheese.
After some small talk with some of the people I just met, Mike gathered us up for the pre-ride briefing.
On prior training rides, we’ve split into the “fast group” (20mph average) and the “regular group”. The “regular group” usually averages 13-14mph, which is a pace slightly slower than I’d like, but I’m certainly not fast enough to keep up with the elite 20mph guys. Today, however, we split into the “intermediate group” and the “slow group”. This is because the “fast group” was doing a different ride today… 200 miles from the Hopkinton area all the way to P-Town. So the intermediate group would be 15-16mph, and the slow group would be 12-13mph. I was really excited about this because I had been wanting to go faster.
Prasad was designated the route leader of the Intermediate group. Steve went with the slow group, and I only saw him a couple more times the rest of the day.
The first few miles were getting settled in, and chatting with some of the people I had just met.
I talked to a guy about my triathlon goals (full ironman someday), and how I can’t even really swim yet. He told me if I can do the breaststroke I’ll be fine, and it will be fun for me to catch people on the bike and on the run. I’m really not sure that I believe him.
About 5 miles in, someone got a flat and the entire group stopped to wait. Eventually, no one could figure out this guy’s issue because he has tubeless tires, so we were sent on our way.
Other than that tire issue, we got to Prasad’s house pretty uneventfully. We refilled our bottles, and had some snacks. I had a plate full of fruit and a clif bar. It was already starting to get HOT, and would only be getting hotter as the day went on (high of 95 degrees), so we did not want to waste any time hanging out at the rest stops any longer than necessary.
When we left Prasad’s house for the 56 mile loop, it became evident that Prasad, although group “leader”, didn’t have the route on his devices, and didn’t know the way. He was consistently giving wrong turns and I would overrule him with the correct direction, because I had the route up on my mounted phone. Twice, he took a wrong turn, but me and the people behind me went the correct way. So for the first quarter of the loop, I ended up leading the group. I was having fun really pushing the pace, and separated myself a bit, but always made sure to be in eyesight. Frequently, two really strong male riders would catch up and pass me on steeper longer climbs, which really motivated me to hit the hills harder. I did manage to stave them off on one hill when I tried as hard as I could, and that was one of my victories of the weekend.
After a bit more leading, when we got into less hilly areas, I checked with others and they had pulled the route up on their phone too, so I felt comfortable to take off and not feel responsible for directing along the route, also it was never my responsibility in the first place!
I really pushed my pace hard, consistently in the 18-20mph range. My legs had felt fresh all morning, because of my solid rest week. I lost sight of the group pretty quickly, and then it was my goal to see how much I could beat them by.
I was feeling so good that I skipped the first of the two rest stops on the loop. This rest stop was a Dunks that was “out of the way” by about 200 yards. I would have had to take a turn and then double back after, so I wasn’t just passing right by it. I considered it, but my water bottles were half full, and I had been really good about consuming nutrition while riding, as opposed to only eating at rest stops (sugar choice of the day was Kellogg’s pastry crisps, which are easy to keep in the pockets and eat while riding). I would come to find out that this was a huge mistake.
About half way between water stops, on the Blackstone River Greenway, I ran out of water. It was over 90 degrees, and the heat, hills, and my pace all started to catch up to me. I had about 10 miles left to the next stop (and then 15 back to Prasad’s), and I was trying to figure out where I could stop for some water, but we were in rural residential areas for a long stretch. At this point, there were many people outside, taking care of their lawns, etc. so I figured my bail out plan was to ask a random person if I can get some water from their sink. It never got to that point, but lesson learned, never skip a rest stop, ESPECIALLY when it’s 90 degrees.
About half a mile from the rest stop, there was a long 9% grade hill. I’m not sure how I even made it up that hill, but at the top, I had to get off my bike and collapse in the grass in the shade of a tree. Even though I was only 2 minutes from the rest stop. 2 minutes from water and food, but I needed to lay in the grass first, because I was starting to feel light-headed, nauseated, and getting goosebumps. I laid there for 10 minutes. Concerned cars slowed down and looked at me, but no one said anything to me. Maybe I gave them a thumbs up. I knew I needed water and food, so I mustered up everything to get back on the bike and get to the rest stop.
The rest stop was at Mike’s friend’s restaurant in Grafton. There was a sign that said “Cyclists welcome! ->” and a girl (could have been anywhere from 18 to 28) on the sidewalk with a dog, ushering me in. She told me I was the first one there. Which in hindsight makes complete sense, since no one passed me, but for some reason I could not comprehend it since I felt so awful and had just been laying in the grass for 10 minutes. The restaurant had AC which was the best thing ever. I chugged two 25oz bottles of water with nuun tablets, and filled up my bottles with gatorade. I ate a banana and a clif bar, and chatted with this girl for a bit. It’s hard to be a good 1-1 conversationalist when you’re feeling so depleted. About 15 minutes elapsed and the group rolled in. I’m very glad I had those extra 15 minutes of rest. We stayed about 10 more minutes.
During this stop, someone asked “What percentage of people do you think have ridden 200 miles in 2 days?” and I said without hesitation “1%”. and then everyone was like “What?! you think it’s that high?!” and I was like “uhhh no… i was rounding to the nearest integer?” and they were like “oh, we’re consultants, all we do is look at data and we’d be more precise than that.” It was quite funny.
When we rolled out I was very glad to be back with the group, and going at their pace. It’s extremely significant that riding with a group is easier due to the 10-20% reduction in wind resistance when you’re not leading. That adds up to a lot over 8 hours. The water and food did help, but it was a total slog to get back to Prasad’s. I ended up at the back of the pack, with Fiona and Dave, and eventually we lost sight of the main group because we were much slower. The entire day was extremely hilly, but this section was killer. There was a point where I had to get off my bike and walk up a hill because it was so steep that I could not pedal. We lost Dave ahead of us during this, and then it was me and Fiona dying on the hills together. I was glad we had each other to get through it. Every muscle in my body was cramping. My hands could barely break or change gears. My feet struggled to unclip.
Finally, we arrived back at Prasad’s and I was totally spent.
For lunch we had boxed lunches from Panera. My favorite!!!
I grabbed a box, and I sat on the floor in the TV room with a few members of the team. When I sat down, Mike said “how long have you been here?” I was like “Me? I literally just rolled in”. and he said “oh I thought you were way ahead of us”. Rip.
I inhaled a chicken salad sandwich, pickle, and bag of cape cod chips.
Then the light-headedness and nausea became overwhelming and I needed to lay down. If this had been a fully supported ride, I would have been in the med tent, getting an IV.
I was trying to figure out my bailout plan. I was 26 miles from my car in Newton. I would need a ride, but from who? Nah, I didn’t need a ride. I just needed time. Steve O hadn’t even arrived for lunch yet, and he can’t be in better shape than I am right now?! Then I heard from someone that Steve O had gotten two flats, and was riding way behind with a girl who was having knee problems.
I layed on the floor a while longer, and then when I could sit up again, I ate the most delicious chocolate chip cookie I’ve ever had in my life.
I spent some time zoning out, staring at the amount of salt on my legs from all the sweat. My black shorts were covered in white, and the back of my knees had kosher-salt-sized grains. I had honestly never seen anything like that before…
I was DREADING the moment when someone was going to say “ok, ready to go?”
Then Steve O and knee-problems girl rolled in, and I was thinking that had just bought me 20 extra minutes. But no. Knee-problems girl was like “GUYS I JUST NEED 2 MINUTES TO EAT THEN I’M READY TO JOIN YOU”. And Steve wasn’t going back to Mike’s, he was riding directly home, so I couldn’t go with him either.
We spent a bit longer there, which did allow me to recover from medically unwell to simply completely exhausted.
Most of us took off together, and I settled into a comfortable pace with a group of 4 with Mike, Fiona, and Dave, again at the back of the pack, and we soon stopped trying to keep up with those in front.
Dave and I had a fun conversation about cool athletic events like velodrome, and crazy endurance stuff like Diana Nyad (Cuba to US swim), and 24-hour cycling challenges.
We had one final rest stop about 10 miles from Mike’s house at a Dunks. Multiple team members departed from here, either riding home or to a hotel (the NYC people), or getting picked up in a car because we had just hit 100 miles and they were tapping out. We didn’t really get a chance to “rest” here because as soon as the final 4 of us pulled in, Mike was ready to be done with the day, so we just kept on.
One final lowlight was when some older guy in the group ahead got leg cramps so bad that he had to stop. Dave was assigned to be sweep, and Mike had pulled ahead, so the 2 of us had to stop and wait with this guy. I had the route, and they didn’t so I was pretty much stuck with them as well. I was beyond ready to be done, but again working on my patience. The third time we stopped, we were only 3 miles from Mike’s so Dave told me to go on ahead and he’d pull up the route.
I rolled into Mike’s street alone, racked my bike, took off all my gear, threw on a tank, and walked up the driveway. The team members in the driveway had clearly been done for a while. Mike had beers and ice cream for the team but I left with the first group because it was already 6pm, and I wanted to go to bed.
I got home, took a shower, had dinner of my favorites: chipotle chicken pizza from panera and a chipotle chicken sandwich from subway. I got to sleep around 10pm.