Sunday Rave Ride

You know those bike rides that seem doomed from the beginning? The weather doesn't look good, you woke up late, your pedal broke and you didn't have time to change both cleats so you are riding with two different pedals, you can only find your left knee warmer and your right glove, and you don't have time to finish any of your coffee....especially as it is key for this morning. Here's why: add to that a night of drunken revelry spent celebrating your best race ever in which you finally dropped into bed at 2:30... that's a.m., as in barely enough time to fall asleep, let alone sleep it off.

And so I found myself on Sunday morning, pouring my coffee into a water bottle, filling the other with extra-strong Cran-Razz Clif drink, and pedaling away to the Corvallis bridge to meet up with Jim and Heather for a short easy ride on the flats of the Willamette Valley (earlier in the week this ride had been whittled down from four ladies and 70-miles because of racing/recovery/Mother's Day excuses). I did find my other knee warmer and glove but not before putting the right spd cleat on my left shoe and forcing me to bust out the screwdriver a second time. Almost as soon as we crossed the bridge, the wind picked up, and as we tooled around for 1:30 on the TTT course (we'll be racing Team Time Trial style out there on May 31) it blew darkening clouds our way. Jim left us early to head back into town because he is racing the Mt. Hood Stage Race this week. Heather and I were left to fend for ourselves amidst the sheep farms and grass-lands. Before long, it was time to pull Heather back into town (she is coming off an awful bacterial lung infection that was almost pneumonia), the clouds passed without incidence, and the sun reappeared. By this time, I was half-way through my coffee bottle (it had become an iced coffee...but still good) and after riding with Heather back in the direction of her house I decided that I wanted to get in a few more miles.

At this point you should be wondering two things, one, aren't I still recovering from a race and two, do I have enough nutrition for this endeavor. Answers: no and yes.

Interjection: I should tell you a little about my training philosophy. I always make out a plan for my training and almost always have to end up changing it. I don't like to think of my training in terms of weeks, more like periods, that would look like a bell curve if you plotted it. And the intensity and focus of the periods depends on the race(s) coming up. Looking ahead, I have a very hilly half-marathon trail run in Bend, and a very hilly (on the bike) 70.3 in Sun River. Both at some altitude higher than me and both physically demanding. Also, I never build rest weeks into my training. If I think I need a rest day or two, I take them, enough said. While I've been doing sports most of my life, I've been paying attention. And do you realize that a week has absolutely nothing to do with the calendar year. It is a completely arbitrary...you can't say that there are 4.578 weeks in a month or even 52 weeks in a year (because there are actually 52.124 in a non-leap year). So, I don't go by weeks, and I only push big training on the week-end, because that is when I don't "have" to work. But there are even some Saturdays when I need a rest day, too. That said. I was fully recovered from my race by Wednesday.

Back to my story: Anticipating a major case of the munchies (not really, but maybe subconciously), I had stuffed a Maple Almond Butter and Marionberry Jelly whole wheat bagel into my pocket for breakfast. And fueling the ride were a Blueberry Crisp Clif Bar (my favorite) and some strawberry Clif Bloks. So, at least I was nutritioused for what I was about to do. Feeling frisky, I headed away from Heather's house towards Alsea Falls thinking to add on the Coffee loop. But, I rode past my turn. Then I rode past the Decker turn. And then I started climbing up to Mary's pass. And it was awesome....super curvy road, not too many cars (and yet, I still got accosted by the honker; but most of the vehicles were friendly). Onto my iPod came Eddie Veter's "Big Hard Sun" and when the chorus came on I would sing "and it's a big hard hill-ll-ll". At the top I ran into a cyclocross rider with a trolley carrying tons of camping gear... Tom, had attempted to climb Mary's Peak, a very nice hill climb and race in late August that I will be doing. However, this time of year, the gate is closed and snow still covers most of it. We chatted, and parted ways. Skinny tires to the left, knobbies to the right.

The descent was sickeningly cool. It has road signs on it cautioning drivers of curves ahead, that I kid you not, have four curves on them. And I like to go fast. Riding to work every day has given me some mad handling skills on my road bike and I took the curves like my friend Tom Zirbel in a break-away.

If the climbing to the pass wasn't enough, I added on Decker just to hammer the nails into the coffin of my hangover. It is a nice little climb on the back roads where you're unlucky if you see two cars the whole up and down. It also sends me in a more gradual direction to the home territory by way of some empty farm roads with names like Llewellyn and Brewster and Fern. I pass by grasslands, sheep farms, and Alpacas (they are everywhere here). And just before I get dropped out on 99W just a couple miles South of my street, there is fence that pays homage to my sport... I call this strange work of art "ET. almost home". Don't you just love camera phones?