A Month of Saturdays (with a Monday): Diving in Headfirst - April 2022

 

Meanwhile in Squatchachusetts

“I see the clouds 'cross the weathered faces and I watch the harvest burn,”

~Don Henley “A Month of Sundays”

 

It’s been a long time since I wrote a blog. The last time I did, I called it the End of the Beginning.  I was at the end of the beginning of a great comeback from injury and burnout.  But on March 11, 2020 something happened.

Thus, after two years of working for HHS through a global pandemic and putting off training, I find myself at the Beginning of the Beginning again.  So, I set my goal in 2022 to be the year of strength and base phase.  The whole year will be one long base training.  Then, I’ll target something in 2023 to build on the base.

After half-assing training for two years.  In January I started to fluctuate between three-quarter assing it and not assing at all. Alas, all of this assing came to a head and it was time to dive in… headfirst.

My five main goals for 2022 are:

1) Boston Dragon Boat Festival in June;

2) New England Randonneurs’ Boston-Portland-Boston 400km in June;

3) RAGBRAI in July;

4) Toughman Duathlon in September;

5) BAA Distance Medley that culminates with the Half Marathon in November.

 

Mary's Little Lamb, Sterling, MA

April 9: To the Lamb and Back

“And I've seen the dog days and dusty days; Late spring snow and early fall sleet” 

Ride: NER’s Sterling 100K

Distance: 100 km (62.5 miles)

Elevation Gain: 3,195 feet (974m)

Time: 4:30:26

Sights: Fruitlands, The Little Lamb of Sterling, Harvard Common, the Easter Bunny

Step one to goals 2 and 3 is putting in miles on the bike (and can’t hurt goals 4 and 5 either).  The 100k is a good little wake up call.  You can put in some good miles while testing equipment in real brevet/touring situations; you can have the “safety” of not straying too far from bail out points near train stations; and, you can share the experience with others who might be equally prepared (or unprepared) to ride a hill 60 mile ride in early April.   The only other time I have ridden this ride was 2014; the timing of it is weird since it will always be close to the Marathon, so years I run that I will probably never do this.

I caught the early train out of Somerville and got into Lincoln right at 8.  After some wise words from Tsun, we were off to the Lamb in Sterling.  Legs felt good.  My worries about general fitness were allayed in the first segment from Lincoln to Sterling. The 29 miles to the lamb statue were considerably better than I thought they would be and I had a good feeling for the ride.

The next segment was Sterling to Harvard.  I decided to push it here.  Initially, my plan had been to take the whole ride reasonably easy – stay in Z1 and 2 – and then pedal easy home from Lincoln at the end.  But, between how good I felt and the chances of thunderstorms (more on that later), I decided to try to make the 12:56 train back to Somerville.  I pushed it hard, it was about the same speed but effort-wise it was more the Z2/Z3 range.  Upon reaching Harvard there was a cool kids festival on the Common.  I heard several children excited to meet the special guest – that mythical Lepus himself – the EASTER BUNNY.

For the last section, I defer to my notes. My Strava notes tell me: “Realized I had some fitness, so I smashed the next 20 miles and then like Soviet Russia, the last 20 miles smashed me.” Leaving chiasmus and Yakov Smirnoff aside, it was good to know that I hadn’t miraculously become fit enough to just race a 100km. 

Despite the despotism of Soviet Russia, I still pulled into Lincoln in a time of 4:30 with theoretically 10 minutes to check-in and hop on the choo-choo.

The train I was waiting for had problems up the line in Concord.  Then the clouds opened up and in the words of one of the teenagers I was waiting for the train with: “It’s fucking hailing, what the fuck have you gotten me into?” He apologized to me for swearing.

 

 

Bib and Schwag

April 16: Marathon Weekend Kick off

“But I always get the shoes on our feet”

Race: BAA 5K

Distance: 5 km (3.1 miles)

Goal: 24:48

Actual: 23:57

The last time the BAA 5k ran was April 13, 2019.  It’s been a long time; but you could feel some near relief as we gathered on the Common.  Dr. Fauci had not said that we were past the pandemic stage yet; but those of us in the corals felt that we were doing something normal again.

Overweight and undertrained is no way to start a fast 5k.  But, alas, two days before Marathon Monday there I was.  It’s the first event in the BAA Distance Medley, so I guess it’s as good as any to con In the corral, I met up with Matt Noyes.  We discussed the lack of training for this race and how we were around 100 miles for the year – far cry from either of our heydays when we would have been putting in 200 a month.  But, time to dive in… headfirst. 

There was nothing significant about this race. Like all 5Ks, I started too fast and then tapered off.  Unfortunately, “too fast” was just slower than it used to be.  But here I was running a 5k on a Saturday morning!

 

 

Hi-fivin' Lamer at 30K

April 18: BAA’s Boston Marathon

“Watched 'em parade past the Union Jack”

Ride: BAA Marathon

Distance: 26.2 Miles

For the second year in a row, I was chosen to ride a lead bike for the Elite women in the Boston Marathon.  This year however it was back on Patriots’ Day – which commemorates the Shot Heard Round the World. 

Our job is to move straggling men’s elite and wheelchairs out of the way to give the vehicle package (6 motorbikes and 4 trucks) room.

With another 0 dark thirty wake up, I made my way to Copley.  We load up wheelchairs, handcycles and duos.  Then we put our bikes on the truck; and hopped on the bus out to Hopkinton.

26.2 miles on the bike is not a tough assignment.  But keeping the roads clear is effort; and keeping up with the vehicles over the Newton Hills is a challenge.  They average 11 miles an hour over the course and are probably running faster in Newton.  12 miles an hour over Heartbreak is hahd.

Purgatory Chasm

April 23: Racing the Train

“And I sit here in the shadow of suburbia and look out across these empty fields”

Ride: NER’s Purgatory 200K

Distance: 200 km (124.5 miles)

Elevation Gain: 7585 feet (2311m)

Time: 11:21:15

Sights: Wachusett State Park, Ringing Bell in Oakham, Spencer State Forest, Purgatory Chasm, Upton State Forest

I was sitting on a bench at Purgatory Chasm eating a cookies and cream cereal bar of some sort.  My legs were aching; I was thinking if I was mistaking by partaking in this brevet.  It was 3:00 pm, the train would leave West Concord at 6:45.  Could I make the last 40 miles in 3.5 hours?

Tsun was convincingly optimistic that I could.

So, I clambered onto my bike and started my way toward West Concord. 

***

10 hours earlier, I was leaving my house to ride from Somerville to West Concord.  This would be the second time I did thePurgatory 200K.  This would also be my first brevet in nearly 5 years – and the first since my seizure (which was literally two days after the Portland 200K in 2017).

Trepidation was thick in the cool air.  It was 47°F when I left Somerville.  While the sun began to climb, I too was climbing out of town and into the burbs.  By the time I got into Concord the sun was up, but it was now 41°F for the start.

The first part of the ride is a long climb up to an info contrôle at Wachusett’s base Visitor Center.  Fortunately for the ride a plurality of the climbing is this first 32-mile stretch.  (Rather, fortunately for the riders).  Tsun met us there. It was a cool point since early in the ride, faster people were just leaving and those at back end like me were able to see everyone.  It’s also a cool point because after all that climbing, I got to stop even just for 10 minutes.

The next section was to the contrôle in Oakham.  Honestly, I never heard of Oakham.  However, they have a cute town centre with the requisite white steepled Congregationalist church, a public library and the town greene has a gazebo and bell.  The volunteers were kind enough to ring the bell upon my arrival.  At this point it warmed up enough – probably 55°F – that I was required to un-pant.  So, there was humor as I fought with my running pants to drag them over my bike shoes and expose my shorts.

 

Purgatory 200K Route

In the new comfort of my shorts I headed out.  In about 10 miles I got turned around in central Spencer.  I missed like three turns and my navigation had me doing U-ies. I stopped to get my bearings and noticed I was in the parking lot of a pizza sub place… I stopped in for a steak bomb.

Heading through the forest land into Purgatory Chasm Reservation, I began to wonder if I could put in the effort required to get into West Concord by the required 6:30.  At the Chasm I pondered my options.  Tsun was pretty certain I could; and I figured I should at least go for it.

The issue is I don’t understand what effort feels like on a bike.  I know what effort is running.  I can tell when I can push and how much I’m pushing.  But on a bike, I always find that I either feel great and grind myself down or terrible and maybe go too slow.

So, the last 40 miles I found myself fluctuating between feeling good and feeling lousy.  I determined when I felt good I would push it; when I felt lousy, I would go into survival mode.  The last couple miles I trailed in with the Colombian guys I’d been playing leapfrog with.  We pulled into the pizza place parking lot.  I had had a slice of Pepperoni and got over to the station to catch 6:45 back into town.

Choo Choo! 

 

Ayer Station

April 30: Monster Climbs

“I sit here and listen to the clock strike, and I wonder if I'll see my companion again”

Ride: CRW’s All the Hills Metric Century

Distance: 100 km (62.9 miles)

Elevation Gain: 3800 feet (1158m)

Time: 4:48:45

Sights: Views of Pack Monadnock, Uncle Sam’s birth site, Willow Brook State Forest, Townsend State Forest

Another Saturday; another train and ride day.  This ride left out of Ayer.  Previously, I had registered for the imperial century.  But, when they added the metric one, my legs told me to do it instead.

Met the group in Ayer.  The Century team rolled out first; then the metric group.  I follow the metric group until the first hill.  And then they just dropped me like a rock.  But, I just kept my pace.  Beautiful ride took me through Southern New Hampshire and North-Central Mass.  There were two monster climbs on the route. 

In the end it wasn’t much slower than my 100K from earlier – despite 15% more climbing.