Crash and Burn 100k: Or a Tale of Two Crashes

Well Yesterday I pre rode my normal 100k loop through Bethlehem and Morris, just to see what I was in for. Well, for all the talk of climate change and mountains collapsing that wasn't the case out here. I managed to average 16.8mph yesterday before heading home and working a little on my paper, the sad thing is I really didn't eat alot that would prove to be the key today.

Crash # 1 Welcome to Bonksville Population Bob.

I met up with Bjoern and Josie at 11:00am and we started out on our 62 mile odyssey. The first 5 miles were mostly down hill but as we started to climb, something didn't feel quite right...Bjoern got around which was normal I held pace with Josie for about a mile and then got dropped....I sipped some more sports drink hoping it was only electrolytes, I had a small headache and was fighting hard to to keep the other two riders in sight. As we hit Nettlehollow Rd. it became apparent that I had no gas in the tank, my lack of eating any substantial meals in the past 48 hours ( I ate but little things, like cereal, some bananas, pop corn...all simple carbs.) definitely wrecked havoc on my body. We arrived at Lake Waramaug to find out that today was the day of the annual 50k/100k running festival so as we looped around we keeping left to allow the ultra runner types to battle through the 90F heat. We got to the State Park and I immediately raided my Bento Box 3 of the 4 power bars I brought with me were wolfed down in seconds along with a bottle of sports drink .

After getting our bearings set we decided to Press On I gave Bjoern and Josie the Warning that despite the food was helping that I was still going to be about 5 minutes back. And so we did our second loop of the lake and made our way out to the hills. As expected it didn't take long for me to go "off the back " and Bjoern and Josie to go out of sight. I sat in my own level of Dantes Inferno, literally the Heat was opressive, especially considering early this week I was walking around in long pants and a hoodie. Needless to Say Bjoern and Josie were holding good pace. They waited for me at the top of CT 61. After a quick regroup...and the comments "those hills are no joke." We began the descent back.

Crash# 2 Josie joins the "club."

This morning Josie made the comment that she had never been in a crash, well sadly that changed today, as we made our way down 61, she and Bjoern hit a small pot hole, Bjoern stood up right and I saw Josie eat pavement, luckily the car between us slowed to stop and help. Thankfully Josie was just a little cut up ( I'm always afraid that when anyone goes down they break something.) and bent the rear wheel of her P2C, the driver called for the Volunteer firefighters to take a look at her, figure clean out her scrapes a little better. Now I was figuring that just a small fly car would come out with a medic with a first aid kit...nope we got a whole 10 man rescue crew, an ambulance, rescue unit, and one volly who happended to be listening to his scanner. So after the whole shabang the good samaritan motorist drove Josie back to her car as Bjoern and I pressed on. I could go into the bloody gory details but I got smoked...

For me it was probably one of my worst days in the saddle in a long time, I just had nothing, but at least I learned one thing, you can't go 60 miles with nothing in the tank.

Counting his calories

R.D.

From cocky kid to Ironman

After shifting through some old photos , kicking around thoughts, destressing from the holidays and masses of credit card debt. My pops and I got to talking on how I came a long way from being the kid doing these things on a mountain bike. My first race was the Pat Griskus Sprint Tri in July 2002, I thought to myself, I'm a good swimmer and a descent runner this thing should be a cake walk. For the most part those two legs were. The bike however was a different story. As a kid I had grown up living on wheels, I had tore a dirt track into my back yard I rode my bike so much. When we moved out to Wolcott I was in heaven our house was situated on a fairly flat 1 mile loop. Every day I was riding at least 2 or 3 loops which ain't bad for a 12 year old kid. Then the accident occured. About 2 weeks after moving in I was out on one of my rides and had a case of "Tour de France Fever" I was descending down this little speed bump of a hill my head tucked down and helmetless pedaling in the biggest ring my mountain bike had. I forgot that one of my neighbors was having their siding re-done and didn't see the contractor's truck until it was too late to even mutter "oh shit."BAM I remember seeing my baseball cap flying into the tailgate and my knees hitting sheet metal then after a moment I felt steel against my neck and pain in my legs. My inital thought and screams were "Oh my God! Oh My God! I'm gonna die!" The next thoughts as the contractors extricated me and my mangled bike from the truck were oh shit I broke my legs, the fact that I was slightly concussed did not help the fact. After getting checked out by my neighbors and hearing the sympathetic of my mother " Do you know how much damage you inflicted on that guy's truck!" as she threw a bag of frozen turnips on my legs. Indeed all I heard about was how I did nearly $600 dollars worth of damage to the truck and totaled my $200 mountain bike all the way to the ER. After a quick check up I was told my legs were not broken...as emphazied by the fact I limped away and I had a minor concussion. 2 things happended that day. I never rode without a helmet ( up until last year) and I didn't touch a bike for almost 2 years. In 2002 after 2 years of High school swimming and long distance running I decided to tackle this triathlon thing. I blew the dust of the $100 red mountain bike my Aunt had bought for me as a replacement 2 years earlier and began to crank out 2 ,3, 6, 8 mile rides to try to prepare for this bike leg. The fact that the first three miles were all down hill didn't help. I showed up at Quassapaug on the second Wed. in July ready for action. The swim was the first time I had done open water a quick off course excursion into one of the support kayaks made me realize this was not going to be as easy as my pool swims, and that against all my training I would have to lift my head to figure out where the hell I was going. After 14 min. I was out of the water and onto the bike. Like I said the first 3 miles were all down hill I kicked it into the highest gear and kept my hands by the brakes as riders on their sleek $3000 fine tuned aero machines soared past me like I was standing still. The climbs were brutal as I inched up hills guys on tri and road bikes were cooking up. Any advantage I had in the swim was completely erased. I crawled into T2 to begin the run. On the run I noticed I wasn't as slow as half the guys I rode in with. I was passing droves on my way to the turn around and even more on my way back. As I finished I thought to myself " Hey I might have a knack for this." the following year I fixed up two ten speeds and did the same race. I finished a little bit higher at the Griskus and was second in my age group granted the little yellow ten speed was still a little small for my frame. About a month later on a whim as a High School graduation present to my self I did the 1st Sandy Beach Tri..I was the only psycho kid under 20 doing the thing solo...and I did it on a better fitting bike. I won my age group and set a course record ( after all it was the first race.) A two year Hiatus, drinking binge, attempt to become a college swimmer followed followed by another year off working at the Gas station/Video game shop/Bank trying to get back into school followed. In 2006 after taking up masters I decided to get back into tris. I spent my income tax refund on a road bike ( Enrico) and entered the Griskus Sprint, Griskus Olympic, Niantic Bay Sprint, and Park City Mossman. I did pretty descent. I finished second in my age group at Niantic...would have medaled in my age group if I hadn't crashed in the Griskus Sprint and survived the two olympic distance races. The following year I resolved to do a half Ironman....and I did in fact I did two, along with some more sprints and Olympics added for flavor. So now on the dawn of 2008 I'm training for an Ironman "the top tier" of endurance multisport... more in debt to equipment purchases then I ever thought possible but with medals and t-shirts that were worth it all. I guess I've come a long way from the kid who showed up on the beach with a speedo and a mountain bike.