MALIBU, CA
The Mulholland Challenge turned out to be exactly how it was named, a challenge. I knew the race was going to be tough, and it certainly makes your legs scream in pain just from reading the description on paper: 115 miles, 13,000+ ft of climbing. My legs knew it was going to be hard, my head knew it was going to be torture, but this went far beyond my expectations.
I did a few recon rides to test out the climbs in the challenge, specifically the four big ones: Topanga Canyon, Rockstore, Decker Canyon, and Stunt Road.
The ride started out... cold, really cold. The starting temperature was 40 degrees F. I thought this was southern California? The place where it doesn't dip below 60 at night! Luckily I had brought arm and leg warmers, but that still didn't do much to truly warm me up. After registering and getting settled in the morning, I headed out for a quick warm up and waited at the start line at 7 AM. This was the suggested starting time for riders who estimated they could complete the ride in 8-10 hours. I thought I would go a little faster than this, but I figured it would be better to start with a slower group and save my energy, than to start with a faster group and burn all my matches trying to keep up with them on the flats and not on the climbs. After completing the ride, I don't know if this was a tactically good or bad decision.
I waited to head out with a relatively large group of riders. About 20 or so, most riding for the same club team. The first 20 miles were a breeze. I just sat in behind their wheels as we descended towards the PCH. I could tell that everyone was nervous about the long day ahead of us when the pack would slow down to almost a crawl at every small 6% grade section on the way down. No one wanted to push their legs at the beginning, and with good reason. We made it down to the PCH and enjoyed our last bit of flat section before the first climb, Topanga Canyon.
Topanga was a good climb to start the day. It starts gradually with a 2-3% grade and then kicks up into the meat of the climb at around 6% with a nice false flat thrown in between to break up the steep sections. My legs felt great along this climb. I had to make sure to tell myself not to push the pace too much at the beginning to leave something in the tank for the other climbs, so I up shifted to a lower gear and was happy to spin along up the climb. However, I had misjudged the strength of my starting group. I started to go off the front of the group, but not from attacking, just from spinning my lower gear. I looked over my shoulder every now and then to see if the group was catching up or if another strong rider was going to come up along side me, but only empty road seemed to follow me. I shrugged my shoulders and sighed knowing it was going to be long, lonely 90+ more miles to the finish. As I passed all the riders that started at the earlier starting times, I found a guy that was climbing at a good place that was only slightly slower than mine. I figured this was the best person I was going to find during the climb, so I sat up a bit and rode the rest of the way up with him.
His name was Collin, and he was crazy enough to do the double century. He looked like he was 40, lived in Orange County, and had a heavy British accent. Funny, you always seem to meet Europeans at these bike races. We chit chatted and worked together on the rolling hills on Mullholland highway before the first rest stop at mile 40. He skipped the first stop and continued to the Rockstore climb, while I stopped to fill up my water bottles. I was back on the road and climbing in a few minutes.
Rockstore was nothing too bad, nothing too steep, but nothing flat either, just constant 5-7% the whole way up. I got back into my usual climbing rhythm and started to look for Collin up the road. By this time the sun was out and warming the canyons a bit, but it was still cold, around 60 degrees. I noticed the wind was picking up too. Great, if the climbing wasn't hard enough, I needed to fight the wind too? I was feeling really good going up Rockstore... er... well... as good as suffering up a climb can feel. I caught up to Collin at the top of the climb. He turned to me with a wry smile and said "I thought I'd might see you again." We continued to work together until Yerba Buena. He sat up and let me go off on my own. I wasn't too surprised since he had almost 150 miles left.
Yerba Buena was an extremely rough road. The pavement was cracked and broken with major bumps and dips in between. I got a mild taste of what some of the pros feel in the spring classics going over cobblestone roads. The worst part wasn't the road however, but it was going over the short steep climbs on the cracked pavement. The short rises seemed to break all of your rhythm and the bumps along the way up seem to take more power to conquer than they should. And after 5-7 miles of these rolling cobble-like hills, it started to deaden the legs a bit. Finally, I reached Deer Creek Road and descended to the PCH. The descent was steep and fast. I made sure not to take any risks going around the bends since it had just rained the night before and there was some gravel and debris on the road. I thought the last thing I needed was to slide out on a turn just because I was trying to shave off a few seconds from my finishing time. But at least we were rewarded with a beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean as we descended. By the time I finished going down Deer Creek, the wind was really howling from the west. Luckily, we turned onto the PCH so that it was a tail wind and finally helping me.
At this point, all the climbing efforts, rolling hills, and cold descents had taken their toll on my legs. I knew I wasn't turning over my pedals as easily as I should, and with Decker Road approaching, I knew this was a bad time to start feeling fatigued. I quickly ate an extra Gu and washed it down with some water as I enjoyed the help from the tail wind before the climb.
Decker Road is a snarling beast of a climb. It digs its claws deep into your legs right at the beginning with a sharp 12% section straight off the coast. It then bites your already aching legs by tipping up to 17% for a few hundred meters before "leveling" back out at 8%. It's relatively short at only 4.4 miles, but it makes sure it takes as much out of you as possible in those miles. I started the climb already in the pain cave and I knew I was going to have to go deeper... much deeper to make it to the top. Each pedal stroke on the steep beginning sections made my legs cry in agony. "Just keep going," I told myself, "dig deep." I would like to describe the scenery on the climb, but I honestly can't remember. I was so focused on the pain that all I saw in front of me was steep, twisting, asphalt. I remember my body becoming numb to the suffering, 5% then surely would have felt like a flat. I gritted my teeth and made it past the steep sections, only to find myself in a new room of the pain cave. A room that is reserved for a special kind of torture: a body shutdown.... My legs had given up... It was a full blown mutiny... Seemed that they had enough of my brain telling them to shut up and keep going. It wasn't so much of a lactic acid burn that made them stop, but a dull numbness. Where telling the legs to turn was more of a challenge than overcoming any sort of muscle burn or fatigue. My power plummeted, and my cadence dropped to a terribly slow 40 rpm. My heart was still on board and ready to work, showing only a modest work rate of 150 bpm, wondering why the rest of my body wasn't turning it up a notch. I immediately thought I had a major problem on my hands. I had always been able to push my body, but I had never thought that it was going to shutdown on me. I quickly ran some numbers in my head and grimly realized I had 35 more miles left to the finish with Stunt road left to climb! There was no way I was going to be able to carry this on to the finish! Thoughts of pulling out my cell phone and calling Kristen to pick me up and abandon the race came surging forward. It was like a siren's song saying, "Why put yourself through all this pain when relaxation is only a phone call away?" I shook them off as much as I could, but their words became louder and more powerful with each pedal turn.
I crawled to the top of Decker and stopped at the SAG stop which seemed like an oasis in the middle of a desert. My thoughts diverted from giving up to refueling. I ate anything that I could get my hands on that I thought would help get my legs back. Cliff bars, Gu's, a banana, and water. The attendant asked if my legs were alright. I modestly responded, "I think they are cramping up a bit." to hide my pain. He quickly grabbed a bottle and responded "Here! We have electrolyte tablets!" He gave me three and I took them down with some water. I then hopped back on the saddle and spent more time going through torture. It just so happens that I forgot to start my Garmin again to record the climb up Encinal Canyon, but it felt every bit as painful as Decker, but it was only 5-6%. At this point the voices telling me to abandon were screaming. I knew if I was struggling up this very short 5-6% grade climb, there would be no way I could endure Stunt in 20 more miles. Oddly enough, my logical reasoning saved me. At the time, I decided to push myself until I got over the top of the climb and abandon after I finished the descent down the Rockstore climb since it finished at a nice cross road with a parking lot for a near by park on the side. I decided that would be the easiest place to communicate to pick me up as well as park to take care of loading my bike. However, all of a sudden, as I was going up Encinal Canyon, my legs seemed to come back and function again. I looked down at my power meter and I was doing 225 watts with a cadence of 70! I was back and ready to ride! The electrolyte tablets had kicked in and I was functioning properly. To say that I was back to 100% would be a huge exaggeration. I was still in pain, like you would be after 80 miles of riding and climbing, but it felt like I was a completely new rider after taking those pills. The thoughts of abandoning were quickly washed from my conscience as I set my sights on the long descent.
On my way to the start of Stunt road, I ran into a few cyclists out for their Saturday afternoon ride. One came up next to me and asked what event I was doing. I told him all about the Mulholland Challenge and course statistics. He then asked when I started, and I told him I had started at 7, so I had been riding for 6 hours. Another rider in the group muttered, "Riding for 6 hours and he's STILL kicking our butts? geez" That made me smile and reassured me about my conditioning. If it was this though for me, it must be this tough for everyone else. I rode with the group until I turned onto Stunt. They all wished me good luck as I started the climb.
Stunt is a hard climb any day, but nothing terrible. It starts out gradually and rises to 8% where it stays for a few miles. I was in some deep pain, but had switched from race mode, to survival mode. I wasn't pushing it up the climb, but just going at a pace I knew could bring me to the finish line. Last thing I needed was another meltdown. I doddled up the climb at a reasonable 5-6 mph and gave words of encouragement to all the elite men that passed me going up the climb. These were the guys that started later and had bridged the half hour gap to me.
I made it to the top still feeling horrible, but I gained more strength in knowing I was closer to finishing and that the hardest part of the day was all over. I did the same thing at the SAG stop on Stunt as I did at Decker where I ate a bunch and took some more electrolyte tablets. I decided to eat some crackers that they had there too since I was over eating mostly sweet food and wanted something salty. These took a while to eat, and prevented me from getting back on my bike quickly. I probably could have shaved 5 minutes off my time if I didn't eat those crackers, but I wasn't thinking about my finishing time as much as just plain finishing. I got back on my bike and conquered the short Piuma climb before descending all the way down to Cold Creek and taking that back up to Mulholland. The climbs hurt, but I was in a zombie like state, where I just knew I was going to finish and could endure the suffering for just a little while longer. When I turned on Mulholland, there were only 6 miles left to the finish, but the wind would be directly in my face the whole time. Guess I just couldn't get a break! At about 4 miles from the finish a small group of six riders caught up to me and I decided to turn off the gas to let them catch up so I could find some shelter from the wind. With 400 meters left to the finish line, I had made my way to second position in the pace line and decided to sprint and gun it for the finish. I down shifted and exploded away from the pack putting in everything I had. With about 100 meters to go my body cried out "You idiot! Why are you doing this! You're in pain! You can't be sprinting like this!" I could no longer continue my sprint and I looked over my shoulder to see who had followed me and was sure to pass me in the end since I was out of gas. But to my surprise, no one in the group had matched my effort, all I saw were grimacing faces farther down the road. I guess they were all tired too. I crossed the finish line and saw Kristen jumping and screaming to cheer me on. She was one of five or six supporters waiting at the finish.
I was glad I had made it to the finish and most of all I was glad it was over. There weren't many riders at the finish, maybe 20 to 30 had finished before me, some I recognized from passing me on Stunt. That made me feel better about my performance since I was in some elite company at the finish line. When the results came in, I had finished 50th overall with a total time of 8:11:22. I don't know how many riders started the race, but the results showed that 331 riders finished. Not too bad, top 15% of finishers. I was surprised to see that I did so well since I had a major body breakdown in the middle of the race, and makes me wonder what I could have done if I added those electrolyte tablets to my cycling diet throughout the race. I guess we'll see next year... :)
No comments:
Post a Comment