Early Season Litmus Test

Left my house on the ol' reliable Rig with the 32x19 gearing 'round 8:30am - and reached the meeting point for the day's ride. No teammate. I knew he'd sleep in. Saturday mornings ain't his thing. The plan was the 45 mile curcumnavigation of the Peaks. Up, down, up, down, and about 100 yards of flat on my street before the turn for the dirt.

The first 12.5 miles of riding was in light rainfall, and 1.5 hours later I took a 2 minute breather at the Inner Basin of the San Francisco Peaks - 9,400 feet up and it was damp and cold. The Oat Bran overdose I had for breakfast was lurking in my esophogus for a while trying to make its way to the light of day, and it took about 45 minutes to burn that gut bomb off.

Inner Basin. Look up - and the aspens are just turning green, and all of the couloirs still have snow. Low lying clouds shrouded the peaks from 11,000 feet on up. Look down into Lockett Meadow and it's a much greener aspen valley and then waayyy down at 5,000 feet is the bone-dry, pinkish, painted desert. I didn't pack the camera because I had rain gear, food, water, gels/bars and tools and a sixer of Tecate. I had to draw the line somewhere because that Camelbak was mo' fo'n heavy. Just kidding on the Tecate...but those little soldiers would have been ice cold if I'd had a few with me.

Time to go down....5 miles down to 7,000 feet on a descent that puts the Bitchin' in Camaro. That was rippin' fast on velcro-like dirt, but over wayyyy too fast because then came the Death March. Forest Road 418 climbs back to 8,500 feet or so and it was soaked. Sucking my tires like quicksand - man, it was taking everything I had physically to keep going. It's just a relentless climb, and I was damn near cooked by the time I got to the top, turning over a very slow cadence standing and sitting when I could for well over an hour. At that point I had to say aloud twice "Man up" to face the next climb towards home. I wasn't cramping or feeling nauseated, but it was going on 4 hours and things were starting to shut down mentally. I wanted to curl up in the fetal position under a down comforter, and have somebody feed me lunch. I was still 19 miles from home, and there was no taco stand in the woods with Salma Hayek waiting tables topless. SO - there was no free lunch today. Just a couple pieces of jerkey, two heinous tasting oversweetened clif bars, and bland-ass water.

So, I manned up and recited the cliche "that which does not kill you makes you stronger", and uttered the former Team CSC motto "Harden the F*ck up" all the while slogging back up - towards home. 5.5 hours on the nose. I'll give myself a B+ on today's litmus test. Still a lot of work to do before July's throwdown in Wisconsin, but I'm feeling a little ahead of schedule right now.