Day 5 of the Tour de Cure
Start
 Finish
 Distance
Northfield, VT
 Killington, VT
  50.7 miles

Day 5:

"The Unbearable Lightness of Not Being Day 4"

I think we should begin with some very quick "biking math".
Q: How much shorter is a 51.1 mile ride than a 107.4 mile ride.  Show all work to receive full credit.
A: Are you kidding me?!?  What are you, an idiot?  It's a LOT shorter.  (This is the correct answer.)

That's about the best I can do to explain the psychological difference between knowing that you have to pull yourself through the mountains over 100 miles, and knowing that, at a distance at which you were just starting to allow yourself to accept the fact that you were cycling on the 100+ mile day, you would already be finished.

Does anyone out there remember Evelyn Wood, the speed reading course that was popular years ago?  The principle they used was to force you to read really, really fast (much faster than the speed at which you could comprehend anything) and then they would let you slow down until you could make sense of the words again.  The idea was that once you slowed up, you would still find yourself to be reading much faster than the rate at which you started.  (Quick sidebar on speed reading.  I actually took one of those speed reading courses.  They make you read things and then answer questions to see how your comprehension is.  By the end of it I was reading much more slowly because all I learned was that my comprehension was really poor.  So, yes, I am the person who reads slower because he took a speed reading course.)  This ride has been kind of like a speed reading course.  After the first few days, and certainly day 4, this 50 mile day was basically treated as a recuperation ride by everyone.  "Sure, my leg is broken, and I think I may have misplaced by spleen, so I shouldn't ride today, but it's only 50.  Otherwise, I wouldn't do it."

Oh, speaking of broken legs, this reminds me of an important question that I'm sure you are all wondering.  How good a cyclist am I really?  For those of you who already know the answer (Steve) you may keep your opinions to yourself.  Instead, let me explain with a story from the ride that will help out.  On the first day of the ride, before we had left, I noticed one guy walking with his bike, and just from his look I said "I don't ever expect to see that guy again."  And, in fact, he blew past me at 10 miles on day 1, and I didn't seem him for the rest of the day.  On later days, though, I saw more of him, and found out that his name is Carl, and he has done this ride for 8 of the past 9 years, and he works for a bike company in Oregon.  One day (day 3, I think) I came up on him at about 25 miles from the end, and I was pretty surprised.  "How did I manage to catch Carl?" I wondered.  I went past him, but he stayed right behind me until the very end, at which point he passed by me.  When I saw him at the end, he called me his savior, and said that I saved that day of riding for him.  That he had been "dogging it", but that I gave him the incentive to finish the ride in good time.  This made me feel pretty good, of course.  So then we get to talking.  It turns out that he had recently had a serious injury to the muscles on his left leg, that he had only been able to start riding again about a month before this ride, and that, although he had been compensating by using his right leg, that leg was severely cramping.

So this is how you should think about it:  Take a pretty strong rider.  Knock out one of his legs with a muscle injury, and take out the other one with severe cramps.  That's pretty much me.  I'm pretty comparable to a strong rider if he doesn't have any legs.

Oh, a quick comment on hills, apropos of nothing at all.  No matter what, even if you are biking, say, only 50 miles, a hill leading up to the Killington Ski Area is still a hill.

Oh, by the way, I really should mention here how wonderful Faith Linsky is.  Faith organizes this ride (everyone on the ride calls her "Mom") and she really does a great job.  And this comment has nothing to do with the fact that Erin told her the URL for this blog, and that I want to continue getting fed.  Nothing at all.

It turns out, by the way, that there is a lot more to worry about on a ride like this than just being able to bike the miles.  A few days ago Faith warned us that we had to watch out for moose and bears.  It appears that if you see a bear you should immediately hide your pick-a-nick basket, and if you see a moose you should try and cover up all traces of your Russian accent.  So now, in addition to just trying to make sure I can get through the rides I am also having dreams about being chased up steep hills by an angry moose, right into the arms of a hungry bear.  And in this dream there is the only tailwind I will ever see, blowing me right into the bear.

Maybe the previous paragraph indicates that the psychological aspect of the ride is clearly starting to kick in now.  To the extent that I was already crazy since I signed up for the ride in the first place, maybe it isn't too shocking to realize that I might be losing it altogether.  But as I said in an earlier entry, the trick I always use is to try and pace how I think about either the miles, or the days, in order to keep from anticipating the end too early.  That's definitely becoming a challenge right now.  As I look ahead to the last two days, I can already hear this little voice in my head saying "Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?"  I'm wondering how well I'll do at being able to pace myself over the next two days (which appear to be 88 and 73 miles).  I guess we'll see in the next exciting blog entries.


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