Make it shorter but hillier, make it hard!

 Make it shorter but hillier, make it hard!

 

“Make it shorter but hillier, I want it to be challenging, Billy, Make it hard!”  I am misquoting Coach Jenn here but that was the jest of what she said to me last Thursday about my Friday long ride.  I had mapped out 75 miles.  She wanted me to keep it to 58, but she also wanted me to make it hard.  So, I went back to the drawing board and changed things up.  I mean my elation at the statement make it shorter was very short lived and completely offset by the statement make it hillier and make it hard.  Again, paraphrasing here.  I can’t recall the exact words.  Shorter, hillier, and hard, was what I took away from it, and that is what I went to map my ride and did. 

 

Of course, I made another mistake, and I asked her how hilly she wanted it, and she said 2,800 feet, since I had struggled at around the 2,400 mark a few weeks earlier.  I worked on mapping rides for hours and I couldn’t come up with a ride that met the 58-mile threshold and the 2,800-elevation gain.  I settled on a 58 miles route with 2,400 feet of climbing.  I settle on this because I put in every climb that hurt me at one point or another while at the same time avoiding the major two climbs around me that would have ruined my day Altamont Pass and Del Valle.  The other ones I added: Manning Road via the Highland bypass, Windemere, Re-verse Windemere, Bernal (Also known as Bernhell), Sycamore Grove, Tesla, and Cross.  I like at that list of climbs around me, and I cringe a little knowing that it is gonna be a hard ride.  However, that is what I was looking for though.  I essentially built a route with five category give climbs.  Which don’t get me wrong Cat 5 is the easiest of the categories of climbs but for me, 5 Cat 5’s is a nightmare.  

 

I went to bed on Thursday night stressed.  First, I was stressed that I had cut out Altamont Pass.  I wondered if I shouldn’t try to go out and try to climb it one more time.  I don’t think it even it registers as a Cat 5 on its own, but its grade is steep, and I have never been able to come close to climbing it without stopping.  I always get to the top, but it is a confidence destroyer, and I didn’t want to go out like that.  I was putting myself into a good frame of mind.  I started telling myself as I drifted to sleep there wasn’t one climb that I had put in that I couldn’t do without stopping.  That Bernal was no harder than Windemere.  That I should have never quit the last time that I did it.  So, I started working on my mental state the night before.  I mean after all I am an athlete and I am cyclist, I could do this.  Sleep came but sleep came hard last Thursday. 

 

I got up and played with Kona.  She chased balls around the backyard for a while.  I then loaded her up and took her to bow wow.  I wanted to be on the road by 8 a.m. but I didn’t get out until closer to 8:30 or 9 a.m.  It was ok, heat wasn’t going to be an issue. The skies were gray, and the sun was nowhere to be found.  The high ended up being in the low 70’s.  It was actually great riding weather.  

 

All Friday morning, I was talking myself up that I could do this.  That none of these climbs would break me.  I could do it.  I was an athlete.  I was a cyclist.  I could do it.  I kept talking myself up.  I also told myself I was riding along.  I was on my own timetable.  I didn’t have a dog at home that I needed to get back to, Kona was at day care, and I would just take it as comes.  How we talk to ourselves is so important.  Having a positive attitude made my day so much better than the last hilly ride I had put together a few weeks before.  I was convinced before I ever left, I would fail and fail did I.  

 

I was cold riding on Friday.  Every time I went west or south Friday, I was bombarded by a strong headwind.  It beat me in the face.  I had thought the wind god had forgiven me for calling her the C word last year, but she hadn’t.  She was there in full force trying to blow me over.  It felt great to have the wind in my face but not that strong.  It made the ride challenging and sometimes I wished it would stop but I kept pedaling forward and pushed through it.  

 

As I approached Manning, I decided to improvise a little on the route and try to get some additional climbing in.  I decided that I wouldn’t bypass on Highland.  That instead I would take Manning all the way to the top to Carneal. I would then go right on Carneal to Highland, then when I got to Collier Canyon Road (CCR), I would climb up and over CCR and take it back to Carneal and then take this back to Highland then head to Windemere.  I called this the curly q because in my mind on a map I was making a giant curly q at the top of Manning.  So, I did just this and I pushed up Manning to the top.  Now, I thought I would get some relief coming down Carneal but something I don’t think I ever noticed about Carneal before was that it is flat.  So, I had to keep pedaling when I got to the top of Manning. LOL.  Pour me, I had to ride my bike.  

 

CCR is a challenging up.  Not super long but a decent grade to it.  I powered up and over it.  I didn’t bother stopping at the driveway.  I decided I wasn’t going to stop until I got to the dog park at Windemere.  However, that didn’t happen. Because when I got to the stop light at the end of Highland, I ran out of water in my CamelBak, and I had to reload it with my water bottles.  I switch to only drinking from the CamelBak a few weeks ago and I think it is helping me get more water in on the rides.  

 

Next up was climbing Windemere.  This is a good climb. I really like doing it.  It is long and I swear there was a dude on the other side of the road walking up it as I was riding, and he was beating me up the hill.  I had to tell myself it was not a race.  To stay focused on just getting to the top and relax.  Keep calm and pedal on and that is what I did.  By the time I got to the top I had passed him, it just took till the top.  This was ok.  Not a race, just trying to get to the top.  I took the opportunity at the top to top off my water bottles, use the restroom and make up more sports drink.  Then I headed down Windemere.  Technically, I changed my route here as well, I was supposed to turn left on Bollinger Canyon and go to East Branch and Climb up there.  However, I said I was just going to U-turn at Bollinger and turn around and re-verse Windemere. It is a good route.  Not as tough as coming up they I had, but it is a nice long climb.  Not too steep.  Still a very good climb. 

 

From here it was time to head to Bernal.  My fears wanted to come forward.  My negative self-talk wanted to come up and tell myself that I couldn’t do it.  However, I wouldn’t let myself say that.  As I road towards Bernal via Stoneridge and Foothill, I just kept telling myself that I could do it.  If I did Windemere I could do Bernal.  If I could do Manning and Cross I could do Bernal.  I just kept the talk positive, and I kept going.  

 

I stopped at a Safeway to refill water and have a snack at the bottom of Bernal.  It was a nice little stop, got some carbs in, reloaded my water.  Then I just kept telling myself, that I could do it, and I headed off.  The majority of Bernal was much easier than I remembered it being a few weeks earlier.  However, I knew when I had come to face to face with the part that had kicked my ass a few weeks ago.  I got into my mountain climbing gear and kept my eyes focused on the road in front of me, and I just kept saying to myself I can do this, don’t look up, just pedal and do it.  So, that is what I did. I kept my eyes on the road in front me, and I pushed upwards.  I can do this, little by little, I was climbing it.  Slow and steady, I was pushing up the hill.  After a while I had to look up and I saw the cross street where I had remounted a few weeks ago and I was almost to it, I just kept pushing and pushing and the next thing I knew I was up and over Bernal. I screamed in triumph.  I road by a couple who was walking, and I told them that I just climb to the top without stopping, I think they just looked at me like I was a loon, but I didn’t care, I was up, and I was smiling with my tongue hanging out of my mouth.   Victory was mine! 

 

I made my last stop of the day at Sycamore Grove.  I took on more water, ate my last PBJ, and got ready for the last three climbs of the day.  You must climb out of Sycamore Grove is you are heading east, which I was.  The final push out of there is steepest of all the climbs left and I knew if I got up and over it, I would finish my big day of hills.  Up it I went, slow and steady, and with legs that were hurting, but up I went. 

 

The climb up Tesla to Vasco it not a big climb. It is an up and probably the hardest climb on Tesla itself. However, it is just an annoying pain in the rear. It is just something you must get up and over, which I did.  I was tired.  I was at 55 miles and I wanted to be done, I thought about cutting out Cross and just taking Greenville home.  I mean I had never climbed Cross with any significant mileage on my legs.  Especially 55 miles on them.  However, I needed to go up Cross.  No, I think I wanted to go up it so, I could say that I did it. Plus, I was already over the planned 2400 feet of climbing I had planned and going up and over Cross would put me almost at 2700, so I was going to Cross.  

 

Doubt crept into my mind as I head up Cross.  What if I couldn’t make it up?  I was tired.  I just told myself if I couldn’t make up, I would turn around and go another way, but why wouldn’t I be able to make it up?  I could do this.  I could and I would do it.  I kept pedaling up.  I felt like I was riding on a race way, it was about 2:30 on the Friday of a long weekend and lots of people were using Cross to cut over to Patterson Pass and they were zooming around me.  I just kept pedaling.  Although, I hated the cars flying by me.  I saw a dead snake on the side of the road.  I hate snakes, couldn’t tell if it was a gardener or a rattler, I didn’t stop to investigate either.  I just kept pedaling.  I knew my ride was over as soon as I got to the top of this and cross over to Patterson.  I pushed, and my legs ached but I never thought about turning around or quitting, I just thought about continuing to push up the hill and finally, I got there.  I had done it; I had conquered all the climbs without stopping.  I felt amazing.  

 

Ride Stats:

 

Distance:  59.15 Miles

Elevation Gain: 2,667 ft

Time: 5 hours 44 mintues

Avg. Speed: 10.3 mi/h

Avg Power: 110 W