(Audax 200K See the post from 5/4/2010 for details. Also, search this blog for lots of information on these rides.)
Advice: Take it easy next week!!!
That’s right. Lay off. Go easy. Don’t ride a lot. Chill. Don’t ride hard. I know you will want to. Avoid the temptation. This will make for a much nicer ride on the 200K.
Now for a little illustrative story.
I knew better. I did! I’d been riding endurance type events and distances for some time. Centuries were old hat. I’d done double centuries. Admittedly those 200 mile events pretty well whupped me, but I’d completed them. Then I got into randonnuerring.
The first year doing brevets was instructive. I overloaded for my first 200K. I finished, but just barely. (I’d made other mistakes, but that is another story.) I completed the 300K, again just barely. My first attempt at a 400K (approx 250 miles) didn’t go so well. Weather, mechanicals, the wrong bike, and I was under-prepared. I went ahead and attempted a 600K, but withdrew at the halfway point.
The second year of rando riding never really got started. I had a serious problem with my eye, requiring surgery, and total physical restriction.
The following year, I was going to attempt to qualify for Paris-Brest-Paris. Didn’t work out. I got hung up on the 400K. I made three successive attempts at it. All of them dismal failures. I determined that I would use the next year to really learn this stuff.
I breezed through the 200K and 300K events. I was training well and carefully. I was focusing on the 400K, figuring I’d get that done, and then let the 600K take care of itself. I knew exactly when the 400K would be. I’d planned a training season around that event.
I tapered correctly, starting the taper two weeks prior to the event. I did very little riding in the last week leading up to the day. Then there was the long long drive down to Florida’s Space Coast on Friday. By the end of that day I was feeling kinked up, stiff, and twitchy. I consented to go out for a “leg loosener” with another guy. We both agreed that we would “take it easy” and just pre-ride the first little bit of the course.
When I first got on the bike, I was feeling puny. My legs were like lead. But after five miles, or so, I was feeling a bit better. This was flat land riding, and it was easy to pick up speed. Soon we were motoring along. I wasn’t breathing hard, and the pace felt great! Next thing I knew, we had gone a bit over 20 miles into the route. We decided to turn around and go back.
By the end of that ride I felt fantastic! I’d been quick without any apparent effort. I ate a huge dinner, not my usual pre-ride fare. Then I was so buzzed up that I didn’t go to bed. I stayed up way too late, feeling good, and not tired at all. I went over my gear, did useless maintenance checks on the bike, and wasted precious resting time.
I didn’t realize how much damage I’d done until around mile 100 of the event. By then I was feeling terrible. I was depleted, and sleep deprived. And I still had 150 miles to go. I bonked hard, just ten miles after that. The remainder of the day, and well into the night were a long, relentless death march. I got back to the start/finish hotel, at mile 200, with absolutely nothing left. Worse, I was so far behind the event clock that, to compete successfully, I would have to make a 19mph average for the last 50 miles.
What went wrong? I allowed my feeling of strength, so carefully built and nurtured, to lead me into the mistake of over-exerting and fatiguing the night before the ride. I broke routine, and over-ate, which made me eat less at breakfast. I should have rested the night before, even if sleep was impossible. I should have forced myself to go to bed and stay there.
The lesson? Take it easy the week before a long event. Really! You are going to feel strong. Don’t let that feeling lure you into developing a “fatigue load” just before the event. And always remember, your training is done two weeks before an event. From that point on, additional riding can only seriously mess you up.
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