What a difference a year makes! It’s been a few years since I had a Hotter ‘N Hell Hundred ride that was anywhere near as big a struggle for me as this one was. I don’t have a great explanation as to why it happened. I was five pounds heavier than I like to be for this ride. Maybe I pushed myself too hard early, although it didn’t feel like it. Perhaps the wind and heat were too much for me, although I’ve finished well in other hot years. Maybe it’s just that if you do this endurance event at a high effort every year, there are going to be years where it doesn’t go as well.
I stayed at the First Christian Church again, and enjoyed a Friday dinner at the Bradfords (thanks, Gary and crew). I was on the start line early and maintaining a decent, but not overly fast pace to mile 40. That’s where my problems began. I had a flat front tire. I found nothing in the tire, so inserted a new tube and tried to air it up. It wasn’t happening. I decided that something must be wrong with my pump, and spend several minutes putzing with it. All the while, a nearby event helper was trying to convince me that I wasn’t using my pump right. To any casual observers, it must have looked like an Abbot and Costello routine there beside the road. Finally, I decided it had to be just two bad tubes, and when I tried another tube, I was back in business. I lost a half hour of riding time with that flat from Hell.
Running later than usual now, I wasn’t finding as many groups to fall in with as usual. Still, I thought I would finish without further issues until the first leg cramps hit at mile 73. I stopped at the rest stop at mile 75. Past experiences with leg cramps have taught me that you just have to slow down and make more stops than usual, to successfully fight off leg cramps and finish. That tactic did not work well this year. I kept having to stop more often, until from mile 92 to mile 93, I had to stop every tenth of a mile. I was starting to wonder if I was going to be able to finish at all.
It seemed to be alternating legs that would cramp, and the cramps were in my quads, a place where I’ve never had cramps on a ride before. I finally figured out that if I just unclipped from the pedal, dropped the leg down that was cramping, and made a few pedal strokes with the other leg, I could continue without stopping. I made stops for several minutes at both rest stops past that point, and those nice downhills near the end of the ride helped, but I still struggled all the way to the end.
I really should have sagged in. And it would have been easy to do, starting at around mile 85. The sag truck kept passing me. It would pass, then as it was stopped to pick up a rider, I would pass it. This happened four times. It felt like the sag truck was a buzzard, circling me. As slow as I was moving, I probably looked to them like I was circling the drain. Hard head that I am, I kept riding.
Today (September 1st, a week later), I finally got around to stopping by mychiptime.com and checking my time. My official finish time for this year is 7:09. Oddly, my time for last year was also on the site. That struck me as strange, because my last year’s time never showed up for the several days I was checking for it right after the ride last year. But today, there it is: 5:04. That means I was two hours and five minutes slower this year than last year. What a difference a year makes! Am I now officially too old to ride a respectable time at HHH? I’m thinking that it’s more likely that that old saying is true: Some days, you’re the windshield, some days, you’re the bug. This year, I was the bug.
I ended up with 585 miles total for the month of August, a decent mileage total for me, but apparently not enough to properly train for HHH.
The 2018 HHH route.
My official 2018 chip time.
A year late, my official 2017 chip time.
