dj whitebread
Monday, April 14, 2008
MS 150 Report
It all started with a bus ride... a bus ride that had a stop in the middle for Applebees. The place that doesn't have a pasta dish on the menu without alfredo sauce. I know, pasta and tomato sauce is weird and fringe. Anyway, we left Applebee's, headed to the hotel, and got settled. A note here about our volunteer team: they were awesome. They got all of our bikes and stuff to Houston, to LaGrange and back to Austin. Absolutely amazing, we couldn't have done it without them.
The NI team had 111 riders this year. That's pretty huge. A big spurt of growth for the team, which is really awesome.
So back to the recap. Friday night wasn't a good night of sleep. I just wasn't sleeping well, and then a group of people decided to have a raging party outside of our room. But they would go away for a while. Then come back. Then go away, rinse and repeat. Since we were getting up at 5:15 AM, needless to say, I (nor anybody else in our room) didn't get much sleep.
Saturday morning we were able to start the ride from our parking lot since we were just a mile or two off the route. I knew there were a few guys on the team who were pretty determined to beat each other to LaGrange (the end of the first day). I stayed with one of them for a while, but this other guy from the team with a tri-bike jumped to the front at some point and ramped up the pace from a doable 23 to over 26. I at this point sat up and decided that I was going to wait for another group from NI to roll by and join them.
Luckily, that did happen. I got a nice group, and we rolled almost until lunch at the 50 mile mark together. Once the rollers started to show up you could tell that most people on the ride instantly were less comfortable. The wind was pretty strong for the first half, and most of it had been cross wind, but it was nothing compared to what would come later.
So after lunch I was by myself for a while as the group I ate with all got lost getting out of the lunch stop (it was sort of a mess). One NI guy who I was riding with earlier (Marshal, I believe) came up behind me and we rode together for a bit. Then I saw these four Canadians from BP Canada come by, and I had ridden with them earlier. And with them is a woman from NI (Carla) who I had also ridden with earlier. I jumped in with them, and this proved to be a good decision. Our little group of six stayed together for the last 30 or so miles of the ride, and proved to be invaluable as far as I was concerned.
We were trading pulls with the wind, actually attempting to deal with the cross wind as correctly as we could given the crowd, and generally having a good time and keeping the pace up in the process. We stopped at the last rest stop (mile 90) because we were all out of water. I knew the last 5 miles or so were going to finally be tail wind. So we just had 5 miles of bad wind left. Right before the turn into the good wind, we had a large down hill. I started coasting down it faster than one of the Canadians, and he started pedaling to catch me, and I was keeping ahead of him just tucking and coasting. Well, that annoyed him so he attacked. We caught him, and then he urged me to go for it again on the next down hill at which point, three of went for it down the hill, turned the corner and felt the tail wind hit our backs.
A note here: this was all in good fun. This wasn't a race, we were just entertaining ourselves to help the miles go by. Well the three of us were riding along leisurely enjoying the tail wind when Carla pops up from behind us. She had chased us down solo. She kind of just looked back at us and smiled. Well, right after this we headed up hill and the older Canadian just went nuts attacking up the hill. I had no desire to chase up hill at this point in the ride, but we all caught up and I took off down the next down hill and me and the older Canadian stayed together until the end just trading hard pulls. I really wanted to be done at this point, so I was perfectly okay hammering and enjoying the tail wind.
So an advantage of getting done much earlier on the first day than the first time I had done the MS 150 was the lack of a long line at the shower truck. I was able to drop off my bike, grab my clean clothes, and get a shower really quickly. Then I hung out and cheered as NIers came into the tent when they finished. I also had a massage. That was nice. Carrie made it in a little while later. Once it got dark, we all headed to sleep decently early. Even though it was cold, and I was in a sleeping bag, I actually slept really well. I think I was just exhausted.
On the subject of cold, it was in the 40s Sunday morning. I had not expected it to be this cold, and I had nothing for my legs. Even though the event started at 7, I didn't get out of the fairgrounds until 7:45. That was the coldest I've ever been on my bike; I just didn't have enough clothes on. But after 5 or 6 miles I warmed up and I never really felt overly cold again the rest of the day.
All in all, I felt good the second day, albeit a little tired. Before the parks, the wind wasn't much of an issue. In the parks it was non-existent as the giant pine trees block it. However, after the lunch stop in Bastrop, the wind was back. It was a headwind, though, so at least you could get some cover in a pace line. And that's what I did. I really had no shame on Sunday, basically getting into any group that I could. I was feeling somewhat lazy, so I was getting in groups that were going slower than I could have been going, but I didn't see anybody I knew all day, so I just decided to take it easy and enjoy the ride in. I eventually made it in to Austin, and relaxed at the NI tent with some food and enjoyed some sampling from the keg.
From a cycling perspective, this year's experience was superior to the my previous one. I felt people were less spastic on their bikes. I also felt much more confident on my bike, and felt a lot stronger. Even though my legs were tired at the end of the first day and during pretty much all of the second day, they were still doing what they needed to do. I remember rolling into Austin the first time I did it, and literally barely being able to turn my legs over coming up the hills on MLK. This year I was tired, but I just spun myself up the hills and it wasn't a big deal. It's interesting to do the same ride again and see the difference.
Of course, from the giving perspective, it's a great cause, and I was proud to be a part of it again. I would have no problem doing it again... the worst part of the whole thing is the camping out at the fair grounds. But I'm just a wimp in that regard. It's pretty awesome to see 12000 people ride their bikes that far to support the cause of wiping out MS once and for all.
On that note, I know I speak for both me and Carrie when I say thank you very much to all of you who donated to our MS150 accounts. If anybody would like to still give, we have another month to take donations, and all of them are greatly appreciated!
So it was a fun weekend. I am very proud of Carrie for completing her first century, and then doing another big ride the day after. This is by far the longest time she's spent on the bike, and to do it with that many other people on the road and all the other craziness is very impressive in my book. Yay for Carrie!
The only bad thing I want to point out about this weekend is that our DVR didn't record Paris-Roubaix. And Boonen won in a break by out sprinting them in the velodrome! Argh.
But now it's back to work. I dropped the bike off for a few repairs this morning. I hope to do a few rides this week, and some races this weekend. No more travel, however, until after the May 8th OSDI deadline. It will be nice to spend a few consecutive weeks in Austin and hopefully get lots of riding and lots of work in. I also need to start fitting in a little swimming and running here and there to get ready for my tri on May 10th.
I hope everybody's weeks are starting out well!
Labels: Carrie is awesome, cycling, MS150, OSDI, pro racing
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