This week represents yet another step forward. At the end of it, I will set out on a two-day, 183 mile bike ride for charity (which you can donate to by clicking here), my longest pedal adventure to date, and a new challenge for my fitness level. So in a pattern that’s becoming somewhat predictable, I worked backwards from the event and planned several training rides, including a two-day ride of my own, unsupported, to see how my body handles back-to-back distance rides.

The plan was to do 90 miles and 70 miles on consecutive days, to be ready for 100-mile and 83-mile days during the Tour. I carefully planned my 90 mile route, which would take me from home, east to Yellow Springs, south to Xenia, on to Waynesville, west to Franklin, and north through Miamisburg, West Carrollton and Dayton, then home again. Just as essential, the route contains known locations to refill my bottles, which is important on a day with heat indices in the high 90s.

Opening the garage door, I was greeted by the sort of muggy, still air that makes you look at your watch, because surely it can’t be that warm this early in the morning! I had slept in about an hour longer than I had wanted, which wasn’t that big of a deal, except that it meant I was going to be out for the duration of the hottest part of the day. I figured the total ride would take somewhere around 8 hours with stops for water and a break for lunch, so I had wanted to leave early, around 0730. But by the time I was up and got my act together, it was already pushing 9. This would be no pleasure cruise, I knew.

The first 25 miles or so would be familiar, as they were part of a shorter loop I did earlier this year, and so I rolled out of my neighborhood, down the first hill and up the first climb, repeating the familiar mantra of “go easy, this is a long training ride.” I always have a hard time not pushing the pace on the road bike, but I knew I had to dial it back a bunch if I wanted to get through not just today, but two days of long, hot training, without injury. I coasted through Fairborn, resisting the urge to spin it up on the long, straight bike path like I usually do, and shifting earlier when the gradient pitched up.

I was just starting to feel proud of myself for maintaining a good training pace when, a quarter mile ahead, 10-15 other cyclists came streaming out of an intersection in regimented single-file. They turned right and headed out in front of me, up one of the larger climbs I would see all day, practically begging me to get on their rear wheels and mix it up. Or so I imagined. Involuntarily, my legs started spinning faster, and I clicked an upshift as I leaned forward on the saddle, shifting my hands to the drops. The riders ahead hit the climb, and while I figured on the typical accordion effect brought on by most climbs to bring the tail end riders back to me, it didn’t happen. Instead, the older guys out front just dieseled up the hill, almost accelerating, from my perspective, and the tail end guys barely slowed either.

But I wasn’t about to let them get away. For all I knew, they might continue down my planned route for some time, lending invaluable assistance during the opening stages of the ride! And I’d appreciate the company, anyway. I stood up and charged, reeling in the line precipitously, and soon I was among the tail end riders. My legs burned, and a voice in the back of my head warned that I’d regret this later, but catching the group of very serious-looking men was a point of pride for me.

We spun our way up the rest of the double-dip climb, and I noticed that while I was making good headway through the pack, I was also having a hard time getting my breath back. The second part of the climb started, and I looked up to see the riders ahead breaking into two smaller groups, the leaders steaming off up the hill as if they didn’t know it was there, and the second pack pulling away from us definitively. There would be no catching them on the climb, but as it was a group ride, I expected that we’d get them back once things leveled out.

Unfortunately, as soon as things did level out, and before I could properly get my breath and grab a swig from one of my bottles, the line ahead of us peeled off to the left, turning onto a side road. I was disappointed, but could only manage a falsely chipper “have fun, fellas!” as the riders I was with turned to follow, and I continued straight. I flirted with the idea of following them, to see how they might push the pace and where they were going, and maybe make a few friends, but decided against it. I had work to do, and it was best to just stick to the plan.

I pushed on to Yellow Springs, catching up on my fluid intake and trying to make sure I’d have an empty bottle to fill when I got to the station there. I rolled into town, propped my back tire against a stand and filled my bottle, taking a few minutes to stretch my legs. I was reminded, once stopped, how hot it was already in the morning, as I was soon dripping wet and fogging my glasses, just standing there. I set out again to the south, back on the bike path and mercifully in the shade for the next 20 miles or so. Pausing once more at the Xenia station for another bottle refill, I pressed on further still to the South, passing dozens of other weekend warriors, all out to enjoy what they could of the day before the sun made it unbearable.

I made good time on the next two segments, pausing for a brief rest and bottle top off at Xenia Station before pressing on to Corwin, the last stop before I would turn off the path again and head west. When I got to Corwin, I nearly didn’t stop, since it had only been about 14 miles since Xenia. But having not done this route before, I figured it was prudent to stop and top off, since I didn’t know when the next chance for water would come, and it was already getting pretty hot out in the sun.

I’m glad I stopped, as it turned out. Sitting at a picnic table in the shade at the Corwin Station was a guy who looked pretty out of it. A woman was discussing with another man how to get their bikes back to Loveland, where they had started that morning. As I propped my bike up next to the table, I gathered that he had crashed, and they were waiting on an ambulance. His jersey looked like it was from an old Tour de Cure ride, so I asked the woman if he was diabetic, and she said he was. He had crashed behind her and hit his head, and now couldn’t remember the crash, or why he had crashed. I offered her one of my packs of fruit snacks guessing that a mental fog of low blood sugar may have been a contributing factor, and she gratefully took it and started feeding them to him.

I hung around for a little bit, taking my time refilling my bottle and trying to clean my glasses, which were already covered in dried and drying streaks of sweat. After the ambulance finally showed, I headed back out, opting not to mix another pouch of HEED in my bottles, since I had just given up my second pack of energy chews, and thought I might need the calories worse later on the ride.

Turns out, that was a really dumb decision. I headed another few miles south, then hopped off the bike path and hooked back around north again to catch the road that would take me west, across the “hump” between the Little Miami and Great Miami rivers. I climbed the 250 feet out of the river valley and found myself exposed to the full sun for the first time since before Yellow Springs, some 30 miles ago. And it was seriously hot. After the initial climb, the rest of the road to Franklin is down hill with a couple of rollers, but I was suffering. I cashed my first bottle in short order and started into my second, realizing I might have to stretch it for some time, depending on what I could find, and what was open, between where I was and Franklin.

As I neared Springboro, I started to feel the familiar squeeze of a dehydration headache, and my throat started to hurt. Not good signs. I knew that the onset of such discomfort was a long way from being in any real trouble, but it still can make for a miserable experience when you’re out pedaling over melting-hot asphalt on a summer afternoon. Everything I passed in Springboro was closed, and I didn’t pass a station or store in Franklin either, much to my surprise. When I finally got onto the bike path again in Franklin, with only a few swigs of water left, I stopped at the first bench I saw to take a break in the shade.

Miamisburg was another 6 miles up the bike path, a route that was somewhat shaded and would lead to places I knew that were open, just a couple blocks off the trail. Rather than waste time and energy trying to find something in Franklin, I made the decision to go for broke, water-wise, and try to make it to Miamisburg, where I would stop for lunch and a long break. It was a long, long six miles, and I was struggling to make 15 mph on flat, shaded ground. I felt like the bike weighed 40 pounds as I slugged along, head pounding and throat well parched. I finally stopped at TJ Chumps for lunch, propped my bike outside by a window, and got a seat inside where I could keep an eye on it.

My head was hurting so bad at this point that it took a concerted effort just to think. The air conditioning was helping, and I downed a couple glasses of water, ordered lunch and filled my bottles. I felt a little bad for the family sitting in the booth behind me, as I sat there, in spandex, sweat pouring off of me. I couldn’t have been adding much to the ambiance of the place, let’s just say.

By the time I was done with lunch, my headache had receded from deafening pain to a dull roar, and I clicked into my pedals and headed back out, knowing that while I was going to be in the sun, there wasn’t much else in the way of a challenge between me and home, so all I had to do was stay as hydrated as I could and pedal easy, and endure.

But five miles up the path, just as I was starting to get back in a rhythm, my progress was halted again, and finally, by the distinct pop and whine of my back tire letting go. Great, I thought,  just what I needed now, was to have to change a flat, standing in the sun, pouring more sweat off of me. I stopped as quickly as I could and got off, spinning the back tire to find whatever had caused the pop. But as it turned out, the problem was the tire itself. The stock racing slicks on my Trek were apparently made from a rubber compound just this side of marshmallow, and had worn completely through in just over 600 miles.

That was it, I was done. I briefly thought about trying to patch the inside of the tire and throwing in a new tube, but that wouldn’t have gotten me far. Certainly not the next 20 miles I needed to get home. So I walked my disabled bike off the path, across the street and propped it, and me, against a tree in the shade, and made the “call of shame” to Katie. I texted her my GPS fix and she came and got me, and the bike, and took us home.

Thus concluded my first failed endurance training session of the season. It wasn’t entirely my fault, but it still sucks not to finish what you set out to do. I had a similar failure last year on a training run, while I was getting ready for my first half marathon, except there was no one to pick me up that time, and I had to walk the 6 miles back to my car, in the heat. With that in mind, this was not a bad day. And at the end of it, after a shower, I headed to Performance and picked up some fresh rubber, so the training could continue the next day without skipping a beat.

Rode hard and put away wet.

This evening I tried another new thing on my road bike, doing a sprint-length time trial. There is a local series called Blue Streak that has a monthly race around the flight line at Wright-Patterson AFB, so with the evening off from work, I rolled over to check it out.

Torrential rain had threatened to cancel the event altogether, but the storms had finished well before the race start, doing us the double favor of washing out some of the humidity and dropping the temperature by some 20 degrees. On the downside, the back part of the course was underwater, which meant they had to change the route at the last moment to and out-and-back, instead of a loop.

The whole thing was a learning experience for me. The first thing I noticed was that my concerns over not being able to clip in fast enough at the start were shared by a good portion of the field. Riders are released in 30 second intervals, and I watched some very experienced guys with some very Gucci shoe and pedal combos fumble with their left pedal for 10 yards or more. I can clip in with my MTB shoes and pedals very quickly, but for some reason my road combo tends to give me a little more trouble. Still, I was clipped in as quick or quicker than average for the field, and was soon charging off in pursuit of the rider ahead of me.

I’ve never really sprinted on this bike. Sure, I’ve spun it up to see how fast it’ll go a few times, but I’ve never tried to really hold it there for any appreciable distance. I glanced down after the start and saw I was already doing 25 mph, a pace I was sure I couldn’t hold, but it never ceases to amaze me how easily this bike will get there. I caught the rider ahead of me in the first mile, which was both good and bad. I was hoping she knew where the course went, because I didn’t!

Helmet hair is no laughing matter.

It turned out not to be a big problem though, because I was passed in turn about a mile later by another rider, and the course was simple enough, anyway. I pedaled as hard as I thought was prudent, concentrating on moving my feet in smooth circles and trying to figure out my breathing for this pace. I was doing 20 mph or better pretty easily, just trying to find that threshold that I could keep up for a half hour without blowing up. I passed a couple more people and was passed one more time, but I kept my head down, hands in the drops and worked hard to keep my cadence where it felt right.

I was keeping a close eye on my speedometer, trying to maintain a good average pace, but not close enough on my odometer. The finish came on me as a surprise, and so I missed my chance to push it up for the last half mile, which may have cost me a little. I caught and passed a girl on a proper TT bike just before the finish, but was passed in turn by her teammate, which caused me to look up and see the finish line just a hundred yards or so ahead. I kicked it up a notch, but it was probably only worth a couple seconds. Rookie mistakes.

But my performance was satisfactory, for my first outing. I averaged 20.6 mph over the 10 mile course, finishing in 29:57. That was good enough for 69th of 100 overall, and 8th of 11 in my (very competitive!) age group. I beat a handful of people on much nicer and more focused equipment too, which is always very satisfying. I can easily see myself improving by 10 places or so overall, just because I’ll know what I’m doing next time.