FEBRUARY 2, 2013
DEL MAR, CA
After a quality nights sleep, I am back in the saddle again early Saturday morning to complete stage 3. Let's see what the Sufferfest has in store for me today:
Extra Shot: 20:00
No warm-up, just flat out straight from the gun. Here's a refresher on the "Sufferscale"
Aaaand here's the gun!
Thanks for the confidence guys, but straight into a time trial effort? Man! My legs feel like cement bricks right now! It's only 20 minutes. It will be over before I know it. Right?
Yeah.. I can barely reach 110 rpm! Come on legs! Wake up!
Uh oh. Cobbles? Who said anything about cobbles before? Crap. I'd better warm up in a hurry!
Wait.. that says 8? Well, time to put he hammer down warmed up or not!
Oh man. This is pain. This is suffering. At least I'm almost done with the cobbles!
Bergs?! Which is short for "Koppenberg"-- which means a climb + cobbles = hell! Come on legs, I hope you're ready!
Made it to berg 3 and I'm pretty sure my legs are revolting now. I look fresh as a butterfly in that photo right?
Make it stop!! GAHH!
Shoot for the line! I don't know how, but do it!
Whew. Made it!
Well good morning Sufferfest. Nice of you to immediately put me in the pain cave. Oh no, it's no problem really, now I just have to do Fight Club and my legs want to fall off. No problem at all!
Fight Club
Warm up: 5:00
Sweet Jesus! Yes! A warm up!
Never have I been so happy to ride with a basket on my handle bars. Maybe my legs can recover.
Well that warm up never felt so good. Now what's next...
Uh oh. Why do I see so many people in their national team kits? Uh oh. It's the UCI worlds
Uh oh.. and I just signed in.
Lap 1: 6:00
Well at least the first lap is just tempo riding. Just keep my legs relaxed and spinning.
Alright, you're working hard, but you can sustain this. Just settle into a rhyth--
Well so much for a rhythm!
Laps 2-5:
Here's the lap breakdown:
Oh yeah, and a lot of these:
Pretty sure I'm gonna grow to hate that word by the end of this.
Ok cool. Only time trialing against Bradley Wiggins. No big deal. Crap this is going to hurt!
Getting low into my TT profile. Waiting for the gun.
Cinq. Quatre. Trois. Deux. Un. And I'm off!
Breath. Keep that cadence up. Keep the hands relaxed..
SON OF A--!
Made it through the TT with Wiggins. What's next?
Ugh really have to grind a big gear on this climb.
Don't do it dude. DON'T DO IT--
GAHHHH!!
OK finished Lap 2. Lap 3- Who's next for the time trial?
Tony Freaking Martin??! Oh man.
Trois. Deux. Un.
No time to complain, I gotta ride!
Needless to say I am basically living in the pain cave now. I'm spending so much time there, I'm thinking of what color to paint the walls and what kind of drapes will go best with the hard rock decor. And just when I don't think I could crawl any deeper into the cave, one of these shows up:
Laps 3 and 4 go by and I am begging for more rest in between the intervals, but I almost just want to get the last lap over with.
Lap 5:
Going up against Sparticus himself! Because the others weren't hard enough!
You know what's gonna happen next:
And just when I thought I had pulled Cancellara back
Then, when things couldn't get any lower
I am at full blown red line right now. Lactic acid burning in my legs and my heart beating at its maximum. Oh yeah, I still have to CLIMB A FREAKING HILL!
And of course, right before I have to sprint for the line
But I followed and finished the stage!
I felt like doing this to my bike when I was done:
Throw it down and walk away.
That was by far the hardest stage yet and really gave credit to the name "Sufferfest." Strange thing about suffering though, it hurts and feels awful, but some how you crave that feeling of burying yourself and pushing yourself harder and harder; like some weird masochistic ritual. Maybe it's only a cycling thing, but about an hour after I completed the stage, I had a feeling of enjoyment out of all the pain I had just put myself through.
Stage 4 tomorrow! Salut!
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