Sunday, August 8, 2010

Metamora, IL, 200 Mile Race - August 7th

It's noon, the day after, and I'm just now beginning to feel like I have enough energy to chew scrambled eggs.

Four 50 mile loops.  Dave Parker and Joe Jamieson of Ultra Midwest outdid themselves this time. Great course.  Great support.  Delightful fellowship. 

I managed to handle to first two laps in 5:09:00; I called the third lap my `lope' lap while I recuperated; and the final lap was 25 miles at about 75% RPE and the last 25 miles at about 60% RPE. I was nicely fried.

On lap 4 I got cramps, despite having drunk enough fluids to float a battleship. I gave about 15% up for the cramps for about 20 minutes and remember screaming outloud to my leg and that pesky abdominal muscle: "I'm not going to stop, you two, so just keep cramping, you ****ers!!" I think I scared the cows and horses.

Twice I found that the front brake was hanging and creating a friction on the wheel. Finally, I just loosened the brake so that it was inoperable. Brakes are for sissies!

Pulling in to the finish Roz Jamison hands me this medal congratulating me for being the third fastest recumbent to finish the 200 miles.  After John Schlitter and John Tanner I was only 90 minutes behind.

But I'm now looking forward to the 24 hour in Port Byron in September.

Here's a link to the Garmin data:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/43684491