Short version:
Got lost, started late, rode strong through the first half (including the Henry Coe climb), hit the wall at Mile 66 due to strong headwinds and not eating/drinking enough, recovered and finished strong. Had a great time riding with Alex G. and Mark J.!
Long version:
After thinking I was under-trained for this challenge, I finished preparations for Tierra Bella with a 78-mile ride that included the Henry Coe climb. I felt okay afterward and declared myself as ready as I was going to be.
On the morning of the event, I picked up a friend of a friend who was going to ride the event solo because his friend got sick and had to cancel. I’d ridden with Alex once and he is an amazing endurance athlete: 19-times IM finisher, Boston Marathon runner and good enough at triathlons to get free stuff from manufacturers. I told him I expected to finish Tierra Bella in ten hours. He said he’d never taken that long to ride 100 miles! It was going to be an interesting day for both of us.
On the way down to Gilroy, we chatted about racing and stuff and I completely missed the exit for Gavilan College (the start/finish point). So, I had to call Mark and tell him we were going to be late. By the time we finally arrived (after Apple Maps got us lost a second time), we were an hour late and got rolling around 8am instead of 7am. Fortunately, we were all just interesting in finishing the event.
The first half of the ride has all of the major climbs. I was feeling pretty confident about them since I’d done them during the winter. I just didn’t know how I’d feel toward the end. But at the first rest stop at Gilroy Hot Springs, we were all smiles.
After a beautiful descent into the golden foothills of Pacheco Pass, we headed North toward Morgan Hill and the start of the Henry Coe climb. We stopped at every rest stop and repeated our Team in Training cycle team mantra: “Never pass up an opportunity to top-off your water bottles or pee.”
We had good weather for the ride and by the time we started up Dunne Avenue to Henry Coe State Park, it was still very comfortable. That was good because it’s pretty exposed to the sun with only about 40% of the 10-mile climb shaded by trees. Mark got to the top about 5 minutes ahead of me (and he took a bathroom break about 20% into it), but I beat my best time up there by 10 minutes, mostly because I didn’t stop along the way. I was pretty proud of that! Alex was on a tri bike with a regular double-chainring setup, so he got to the top about 30 second behind me. But because he’s such a stud on a bike, I felt pretty proud about that, too. 😉
Since he had never been up that road, he decided to take his time going down and take lots of pictures. So, Mark and I waited for him near the bottom. When he caught up with us, we headed into Morgan Hill for the second half of the ride.
Now, I was told ahead of time that Alex had been going through a nasty breakup and that we might hear about it during the ride. We did! You might think that talking about a relationship gone wrong for four hours would be a bad thing, but it really made the miles fly by. That’s the great thing about endurance sports: you really get to know the people you run/ride with. I felt bad for the guy, too. Seems like the more he opened up about it, the worse the details got. But by the time we were at the 75-mile mark, we were bros for life! He just needed to vent and we were only too happy to let him.
Leaving downtown Morgan Hill, we hit my personal low spot: Hale Ave./Santa Teresa Blvd. This road faced straight into a stiff headwind. The flags by the side of the road were pulled out straight! Also, due to the spacing of the rest stops, I hadn’t eaten anything since the bottom of Dunne Ave., so my reserves were low. I entered the “bite me” zone where low-blood sugar had me in a foul mood. I knew the route would turn left and the headwind would be behind me, but it was a long four or five miles before that intersection and I didn’t want to stop halfway only to have to start again and face that wind. It’s kind of like stopping in the middle of a climb; you don’t do it if you don’t have to.
I told Mark and Alex as they passed me that I wanted to take a break after the left turn at Bailey Ave., so they waited for me there. I quickly ate two GU packs and started to feel better in minutes.
The rest of the ride had a few small climbs, but there was nothing over a few hundred feet. And we knew that the wind would be at our backs most of the way home, so we finished pretty strong. I stopped my Garmin and it said we did 100.6 miles in 9:59:03 — 57Â seconds shy of ten hours!
Afterward, we stopped for beers and burgers: more chatting, more stories about all the events we’d done, and a little more therapy for Alex. All told, it was a great day and I wasn’t even that sore the next day!
Now I turn my attention toward running. I’m signed up for the Portland Marathon in October with Team in Training!