Horribly Hilly Hundreds 6/18/11

"Oh, that's right, it's called the horribly hilly hundreds."
"At least it's not the horribly windy hundreds." I replied.

This was the kind of banter and sick sarcasm that was needed in the middle of this ride. But before I get to the middle, maybe I should start at the beginning. A very good place to begin...

I signed up for the Horribly Hilly Hundreds in February. A long time before I knew what kind of shape I would be in come ride time. I just couldn't turn down a event whose motto was "Biking Like a Viking." Could you? I figured I would be in reasonable shape since the last week of school was at the end of May and the ride was June 18. And I was in reasonable shape, more than reasonable considering the fact that I was balancing cycling with med school (among other things); but unfortunately the preceding three weeks before my event were marked with lots less riding (around 75 miles or less in three weeks) than I had hoped for and allergies that were sapping the power I needed to get up steep inclines. And even though I like to fancy myself a climber, I'm not. I'm really just a masochist. A wannabe masquerading in polka dots.

So you can see why an event like Horribly Hilly would appeal to me. 100 miles, 9300 feet of climbing, Viking-like toughness. Not only is that hard to do in a notoriously flat place like Wisconsin, that's just plain hard to do, if you know what I mean. And even though I'm more sprinter than climber, I do have more skill in going upward than the typical sprinting type I might line up against. As the day drew nearer I began to realize more and more what I was really up against. This was going to beastly.

Before the event the weather looked bad. Actually, just "bad" is being generous. I was thinking this was going look a lot from the scene in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy sees her mean old neighbor lady turn into the wicked witch of the west as she gets sucked into the tornado on her bicycle. Thunderstorms were supposed to roll in the Friday night before the ride began Saturday morning and then continue throughout the day on Saturday. I had a campsite reserved in Blue Mound State Park. It seemed like a good idea seeing as the ride more or less started and finished from there, but with thunderheads rolling in it began seeming like a good idea gone bad.

Fortunately the rain never came. Each time I woke up in my tent Saturday night to a peaceful night without rain I said another prayer that the rain would stay away. Thankfully, it did, as a matter of fact it stayed away an entire 24 hours. When I rolled out at 6:45am on Saturday morning the clouds looked thinner, but still possibly holding a shower to come. As it turned out the day only got better. The clouds rolled away and by 40 miles it was actually rather hot.

I rode the first 30 of the day mostly with a guy named John from Chicago who was riding the 200k route. I was disappointed when we had to split, but that's that. So far I had navigated our first real pretest as we rode up the backside of Blue Mound State Park and twice up Scherbel Road Grade where our first rest stop was. The course looks kind of like a cloud or sheep drawn by a little kid with loops around the outside of a central core. This made it convenient because you stayed near the big hills that make the Blue Mounds, WI area interesting, but never got too far from your destination in case you ran into trouble. You can see the route here.

The first section was one of the hardest. It was probably the second most difficult section. For the 150k (actually 100 mile) route the course was divided into 4 sections with a rest area every 25 miles and some water stops interspersed in between rest areas. This worked out very nicely. 25 miles over this kind of terrain was about enough to drink 2+ bottles by the time the sun was out and heating up the day. The Horribly Hilly organizers did a good job with rest station support and water. As a matter of fact, the spread at the rest stops was AWESOME. The food was fantastic, the volunteers were cheery and friendly and did I mention the food was great.

It was during the first section that I met John from Chicago. He was a Cervelo-Test Team clad lawyer riding a Cervelo S2. I keep meeting lawyers while I'm on my bike. Last year I met a lawyer named Steve with whom I tore it up at the Durand Road Race. Hopefully I keep meeting them on the road and not in the courtroom. John had done the event last year, so he helped me navigate the early course when there were fewer people out to be able to follow along with. We parted ways when the 150k and 200k routes split and I didn't see him again. I rode alone from there until the second rest stop which was located at the 51 mile mark. It was a little lonely after leaving all of the 200k riders that I had been riding with because most of the 150k riders started about 15 minutes after me and hadn't had much time to catch up since I didn't stop long at the first rest stop.

I decided rest stop #2 was my lunch stop. I hung out a little extra long, ate half a peanut butter and jelly bagel, a ham rolled tortilla, a Honey Stinger waffle (My new favorite Honey Stinger product), a bunch of grapes, and even threw down a couple endurolytes pills. The day was getting hot, so I decided to make sure I had enough 'lytes on board. By the end of the day I wound up using 6 Nuun tablets and 4 endurolytes. That's about 5 times what I normally use in a day of training. I also figured that I drank around ten 20 oz water bottles over the course of my ride and immediately post ride fueling.

Shortly after leaving rest stop #2, I met up with a couple of riders wearing Copper Triangle jerseys. This brings us back to the conversation I started this post with. One of the guys was from Colorado Springs, CO and the other from Eagan, MN. They both had plenty of experience in the saddle and I rode with them until we started to break apart regularly on the climbs. I then joined Eric, a rider from Chicagoland. He claimed he was in advertising, but his jersey was plain white which I found it rather ironic in a sport that is blanketed in ads. We stuck together until the third and final rest stop before the finish. I took an extended rest there as I put on an extra layer of sunscreen, force fed myself to try and top off my fuel tanks and looked over the map to see what I'd have to make it through to finish.

I took off without any riding buddies seeing as I planned to put it on cruise control over the last 25 miles so that I could save all my efforts for the inclines. I had mentioned that I thought the first 25 mile section was the second hardest. I'm pretty sure that the final 25 mile stretch was the most difficult. Combining the fact that I had 75 miles under my belt and the day was hot, the final 25 miles still had 2770 ft of climbing to do, not to mention the killer uphill finish. As I rolled away from the final rest stop I broke the remaining miles into each portions, each ending at the top of a big climb. Somewhere on those climbs I think I got passed by Robbie Ventura who was supposedly on the course that day.

Finally, I arrived at the killer finale. It had been my goal to try and be an encouragement to anyone who I passed while going uphill, because getting passed while going uphill is typically somewhat demoralizing. I did a pretty good job of this until the final climb. By the time I got there it was just a matter of surviving. I put my bike in the lowest gear and tried desperately to climb out of the deep dark pain cave that I was putting myself in. I don't remember a lot of that climb, but I passed a lot of people who were struggling and those who had given up the struggle on wheels to walk. My ultimate goal was to stay on my bike and not walk. I managed this successfully and crossed the finish line after 6 hrs and 35 min. That comes out to an average speed of 15.3 mph, and I'm proud to have gone that fast.

It was a long brutal day. Maybe one of the hardest rides I've ever done, but it was worth every turn of the pedals. We never had a drop of rain during the ride (although, torrential downpours came that evening), the wind was calm, the people were friendly and the support was fantastic. Finishing the final climb there was chalk-written encouragement all over the road. If I would have had any reserve mental capacity for reading during the climb it would have been really great...okay, maybe I wasn't that deep in the pain cave. All in all, it was a great day. I would definitely do it again and would recommend it to anyone crazy enough to try.

Thanks for tuning in, I know this was a long one. If you get a chance get out and try "Biking like a Viking," you just might get hooked.