The Gillens.net

This Memorial Day weekend, my friend Brad and I joined about a dozen other triathletes for an incredible 2 days of cycling in th Ouachita Mountains in eastern Oklahoma. The main purpose of this trip was to prepare us for the mountain climbing (and descending) that we’ll experience in Adirondack Mountains when we race Ironman USA (IMLP) in Lake Placid, NY on July 20th, 2008.

Saturday

We left about 7:40am and it was already quite humid. The first 5 miles or so were flat and provided a nice warm up. Then we hit some nice 5-7% grades for a few miles which is exactly the type of grades we’ll experience in IMLP. The roads were smooth, the grades reasonable, and I was happy as this is exactly what I wanted. After 35 minute or so, we re-grouped at this park lodge and let everyone catch up. Then, the steep grades started! Probably a good 2 miles of 9-12% grades! It took me about 13 minutes which doesn’t sound like a lot, but it really is when your HR is in Zone 5 (182), your cadence is around 50 rpm, and your speed is around 6 mph! I had never done a climb like this and it was tough.

Following this initial steep climb were greeted with several other steep, but shorter ones throughout the first 30 miles. Seeing the steep, long climbs appear in the distance was quite intimidating and could easily deteriorate your mental attitude. “We have to climb that. You must be kidding. Surely, that’s some other steep side road, right?!”

However, the most terrifying experience of the whole weekend occurred not on one of the monstrous climbs, but on the first steep descent. Within seconds, my speed went north of 40 mph and all of sudden my front wheel starts to wobble and shimmy violently out of control! I apply the brakes, but I don’t appear to slow down much and the shaking is just getting worse! I was absolutely terrified and I just had all those scary images of Tour de France riders having horrendous crashes on the descends in Alps! I just knew I was going down and it was going to real bad. It felt like my front wheel was completely loose or something, like I didn’t clamp it down tight and it was just rattling around in the fork! I thought it might fly off my fork any minute and that would be it! Somehow, I kept control and stayed upright and managed to slow down finally. I came to a complete stop at which point my legs were trembling out of control from just nerves! It took a few moments to check over my bike and everything looked OK. I figured I might have been applying the front brake to hard or something or that maybe my wheels were out of true. Either way, I really had no choice but to continue, and after a few seconds to regain my nerves, I started down again. Although this time, I rode the brakes pretty good and didn’t get too close to 40 again for quite a while.

Later, I research this phenomenon and found out that it might not have anything to do with my wheels or brakes, but simply a condition that happens based on my position on the bike. See this article. It claims that “unloading the saddle” will stop the shimmy! Man, I wish I would have know this 2 days ago. Other articles also suggest applyling pressure to the top tube with one or both knees. I will try both of these tricks if and when this terrifying shaking happens again. Needless to say, I will also have my bike tuned up before IMLP, including a truing of the wheels and new brake pads!

I’m really glad I experienced this for the first time in practice and not during a the race. I think my previous fastest speed was about 42 mph I hit in a local rally a few years ago, but that was on my old road bike. I’ve probably never been above about 34 mph or so on my tri bike. Later on Saturday, I actually regained some resemblance of manhood when I had the courage to get up to about 45 mph! That was the fastest I’ve ever been on a bike!

Overall, I enjoyed the ride. I actually like the climbs better than the descents. The views were quite pretty despite the mist that limited our visibility to a good degree.

Stats for the day: 100.1 miles in 6:05 for a 16.4 mph average and a 157 avg HR

Saturday evening we had an incredible grill out! Some people brought meat and veggies to grill, while other made pasta salad and such and we ended up having quite a feast. It really hit the spot after a hard day. It was fun to “talk triathlon” and just hang out with a good group of people!

Sunday

A much smaller group (5) of us went out for some more on Sunday. I wanted to get in 4 more hrs to really take advantage of this good long climbs that we just don’t have any where close to the Metroplex. We started the same route as Saturday and even climbed that initial steep 2 mile stretch, but after that we headed down the other side of 271 which turned out to be really nice. None of us had been down this way, but Larry had the good point that b/c this road was a highway it should have smaller grades than the Byway, and he was right. It was perfect practice for IMLP b/c there actually aren’t any really steep climbs at IMLP. I think a 1 mile 8% climb is about as bad as it gets at IMLP, so I really wanted to practice the 5-7 % climbs that would simulate that typical IMLP profile. 271 provided just that.

On the way back S on 271, there was nice long 2.6 mile climb that was about a 6% grade. It took me about 15 minutes to climb it the first time. I did it a 2nd time in 17 minutes when I took it easy and kept my HR below 150, and then on the 3rd time (after 3 hrs of riding), I really pushed it, elevating my HR to over 160 and I did it in about 14.5 minutes. Not that much faster, but I was happy I had the mentally toughness to push a hard climb after 3 hrs of riding an 6 the day before!

One of the happiest moments in my 2 months of training occurred during the last 30 minutes of today’s ride. I was done with the climbs, and I was cruising downhill on the flats just thinking to myself that this is what IM training is all about: Enjoying the training and enjoying the journey of even getting to the starting line! I had an incredible sense of accomplishment stemming from that fact that I just put in 160 miles and over 10 hrs of training this weekend to cap off my first ever 20 hr week! And I was still smiling and actually enjoying myself at the end of it! It was one of those times that I’ll remember as a highlight of all my IM training and one of my favorite moments when I look back on this whole experience.

Stats for the day: 60 miles in 4:00 for 15 mph average and only a 148 avg HR (This didn’t include the long flat stretch from Saturday, so my average speed is slower)

This whole weekend will go a long way in preparing me for IMLP.