MueckeRacing

well, spent over 13 hours in the rain today …

The fun started about 5 miles into the ride when my booties soaked through, then quickly progressed to a surreal climb up Clodfelter Rd.  I’ve probably been up that road 100 times, but this morning the fog was so thick that I actually got lost on the way up.  Not that I went off course, there is only one paved road up to the plateau, but I actually couldn’t figure out where I was.  I tried to climb slow enough not to drench my clothes – but I still had to stop at the top and put on another shirt for the descent down to Hermiston.

Today’s route was a conscious decision to inflict a little misery – in order to train the brain of course.  The ride out of Hermiston south to Lexington is essentially a 40 mile climb – but the grade is light enough that you are left wondering why you are going so stinkin slow.  Takes about two hours to get real discouraged.  Anyways, the constant rain wasn’t helping, either.  Turns out that a 30% chance of rain doesn’t mean that you have a 30% chance of it raining at all, it means that for the entire day, the atmosphere will consist of  70% air, and 30% rain.

I finally made it into Lexington, and pushed on, only to get a flat just outside of town, right next to a very rambunctious sheep dog.  Got the flat fixed and headed down the road, only to find out he had buddies, and all three of them were now intent on herding me where they thought I should go.

9 miles later and I’m dreaming of a hamburger from the Willow Creek Diner, which George and Terri from Race Across Oregon recommend as the best in the state.  Closed.  So I find the only grocery store in town and proceed to skitter around the store in my wet shoes looking for a sandwich and something warm to drink.  Hey, they serve Starbucks way out there.

I took a different “more scenic” route home (aka a crap load more climbing), and ended up back in Hermiston looking for more food and water.  The final re-climb back over the plateau had the huge added attitude adjustment of a headwind, followed by the same bank of fog.

There are no fog lines on the section of road that was resealed last year, so I was forced to ride down the center of the road – if was full dark again.  Probably the slowest I have ever had to come down that hill.

Turns out the reason I was so slow and less-than-RAAM-feeling was that in just over a century and a half there was 8300′ of climbing.  Have to do that ride someday without a backpack and winter tires.  Well, the brain work seemed to take hold about 10 blocks from the house, and I arrived back home feeling strong enough to ride all night.  But it is January and a hot shower brought me back to reality.

Woke up this morning to a driving rainstorm, and decided that it would be a good day to tackle all the little details that have started to slip through the cracks.  Things like updating the inverter in the van, changing up the storage boxes in the van, grinding down and polishing the headlights and replacing the bulbs in the van.  It’s all about the van.

Anyways, it was a good week of training, with a respectable mileage total.  But more importantly, a full weeks worth of after-work riding – as well as the morning workouts.  This is a tough one for me, as I am usually fairly tired after a day of work.  So it was a small victory to at least get on the bike every evening.  Weather permitting I will be out all day tommorrow – this time of year any riding outside at all is a real blessing.

4:55 pm.  I’ve been on the bike now for about 11 hours.  Had to turn the lights back on, and as I pulled the last little grade before the descent into Benton City I fished around in my pockets for some food.  Alas, all that was left was some fairly experimental tuna wraps, which I had been saving all day.  Or avoiding.  Anyways, with another 20 to go to get home, no choice but to start eating.

5:05 pm, rolling through Benton City, cheating the fog line to stay away from the debris field in the bike lane.  Larry is a few yards ahead of me, with some nicer lights than me, so I am watching sort of watching his lights part of the time.  Choose the wrong part of the time and just barely noticed a lump in the road – too late to swerve, which was probably better.  So I just tagged the slimy front end of a dead cat, but only side slipped an inch or two.

Anyways, turned out to be a nice day for a ride, although the sun never managed to burn through the fog.  This time of year tends to get a little tough around here with the rivers generating a constant bank of fog, but at least there was no precipitation, and the temperatures weren’t too bad.  I was out of Spiz so I had to rely on good old fashioned food, which is a bit inconvenient when you are used to just reaching for a bottle when you get hungry. 

The only drawback to the ride was the nagging reality of work on Monday – I had convinced my boss that a 4 day work week was going to be better for all of us as I ramp up the training for RAAM, but was going to have to go in and work on this particular Monday due to a “problem child” repair on a house with some water damage in the ceiling.  So now instead of backing the ride up with a nice leisurely century to recover the legs, I am forced to back the ride up with a short morning on the trainer followed by a long day working on a ceiling.

The new year brought an unwelcome layer of snow which was covered over with a healthy layer of ice, so I had to miss out on a New Year’s Day ride this year.  Jan. 2nd brought warmer temps and a lot more pavement showing, so I threw some foot warmers in the shoes, put on six layers of clothing, including the new Scott’s Jersey, and headed out in search of enough pavement to put in a century.

The traffic cams had shown more snow to the west, so I headed down to Walla Walla, where I met Sammi for lunch.  After a much longer than usual break, we decided to head further out and do some sightseeing.  We had heard about a small choclate store in Milton-Freewater, so off we went.  Wasn’t too hard to find, and yes, they have some of the most amazing chocolate truffles.  Not great bike riding food, but I have been enjoying them the last few evenings.

From there Pendleton didn’t look too far away, so I sent Sammi in search of antique stores and continued my ride.  At this point I was starting to really feel the last month’s worth of indoor riding – seemed like a long 30 miles, and by the time I got down to Pendleton, a burger and a beer sounded a lot better than another 70 miles to get home.

So I backed up the brewpub move with a ride on Sunday.  Probably THE hardest ride I’ve done this year.  Long, long slog northward into a mild headwind, frost on the road, fog, no sun.  I finally reached Basin City and was totally dismayed to have only covered 35 miles.  Gads – now I was really feeling last month’s indoor Buffy/Star Trek fest.  

Well, anyways, not a bad opening gambit to put in two centuries on the first weekend of the year.