Twas a fine soft day.
The 2008 brevet season has started and Saturday was the Spring 300K ride (actually 190 miles). 50 of us started out from Lacey (near Olympia) at 7am.
A 7am start doesn’t sound too bad until you factor in a late night with friends playing Rockband and a 4 am alarm going off to allow me to have breakfast and drive down to the start on time. Still I kept telling myself that 3 hours sleep just allowed me to practice riding sleep deprived for the longer rides later in the season.
The ride started in Lacey and headed out to Johnson Point and back for some nice rolling countryside. A quick tour of downtown Olympia followed, then south through the rolling hills of Capital Forest and down to Vader, Chehalis, and Centralia checking out some of the areas that were flooded this winter. Returning north past the steam plant, more rolling back roads brought us back to Lacey. All in all about 7000+ feet of climbing. Think of it as a hilly one day STP, for those familiar with that ride in the NW.
The rain actually held off until around midday and then came down pretty steadily for the rest of the ride. I did the first 100K in around 4 ½ hours, the second in 5 ½ or so and the 3 rd in 6 (from my rough calculations as my GPS ran out of batteries after 150 miles). I finished at 11 pm, 16 hours after starting (beating my time from last year by … 4 minutes).
It was a bit of a shock to the system as I’d missed the 200K last month so my longest ride since PBP last year has been around 80 miles. A bit of a jump in mileage but I got into my rhythm and the miles trundled along.
Couple of points of note where some of the nice long climbs in the area, my arms taking a battering from the chip seal (need to consider wider tires as people on 38s seemed pretty comfortable relative to my 25s), a very welcoming manned control at mile 153 at the top of the penultimate hill where about 7 volunteers were gathered under the SIR canopy; refilling water bottles, making hot chocolate, dolling out pizza and anything else you needed. It was a much appreciated rest stop before heading off into the fading light for the final stretch.
I think I’ll try some liquid food on the 400K next month as I found it tough to find decent stuff to eat at the various stores along the way and relied on a lot of junk snacks which I don’t think kept me with sustained energy for the whole ride. My energy levels were flagging for a bit during the middle of the ride as I started to bonk. It’s a fine balancing act getting nutrition levels right for a long day or multiple days in the saddle.
I rode with various people during the course of the day and as always it was fun to see the range of people attracted to this sport, from riders on their first 300K to seasoned long time randonneurs.
Now that the aches have faded I’m starting to look forward to the 400K next month (and some warm weather riding at Northwest Crank in Wenatchee later this month).
Rolling hills (Johnson Point)
Photos from Seattle Randonneur (http://tinyurl.com/48bwsd)
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