60 seconds to finish the Cascade 1200

Part III: the 1200K is like no other Brevet. It is an unrelenting challenger. Sooner or later it will find your weakness.

Preparing my body to endure a 762-mile, 90-hour bicycle ride through the mountains and deserts of Washington became a primary focus of my daily life in the months leading up to the Cascade 1200.

If you review the training literature covering long distance cycling, you find that most of the articles and books emphasize the century ride; it makes sense: for most recreational cyclists, 100 miles represents the definitive milestone.

When you start looking for training ideas for riding “ultra” events, the volume of literature thins with the number of riders contemplating them. The training programs offered by RUSA and UMCA are good, but also, quite sobering. For most newbies, the focus of s research shifts to the experienced randonneurs. Ride along side one for a few miles and most are only too happy to share their ideas.

“Have you done a 1200?” became the standard opening question, which I put to every rando I met during the spring of 2006. I gleaned a lot of information this way. One of the themes that began to emerge was the importance of maintaining an average speed that will get you to the overnight controls with enough time to sleep.

I have never been a fast rider. One of the attractions of Randonneuring over other forms of endurance cycling is I wouldn’t have to be. But the thought of riding through the night without sleeping motivated me to begin thinking more seriously about my speed on the bike. As a sport/recreational rider, I typically averaged 15 miles per hour on a strenuous 50 to 70 club ride. Using that as a baseline, I figured I could complete the first day of the 220 mile course in 15 to 16 hours: 14 hours on the bike, an hour in the Controls, and an hour for dealing with whatever came up the road.

I wish that had been true. Like many clubies I rode under the illusion that my average speed is what I saw at the end of a ride on the cyclocomputer. Fact is, my Polar 720i calculates average speed as stopwatch time. On a Brevet, the relevant measure is elapsed time. Consider the shortest official distance – a 200 kilometers Brevet – with four Controls. Riding at 15 miles per hour while on the bike, and spending just 15 minutes at each Control stop, will reduce your average speed to 13.6. That is precisely I was achieving while riding the qualifying series. I figured that would be my number on the Cascade 1200.

That was illusion number two. I did my qualifying series in the Willamette Valley, where occasional rollers and afternoon headwinds were the only forces working against me. Oregon RBA (Regional Brevet Administrator) Susan France encouraged those of us wanting to qualify for the Cascade 1200 to do the series in Washington, where we would encounter terrain more comparable to the event. It was wise counsel that I chose to ignore.

Between my 26 mile commute rides to work, and 200K permanents on Saturdays, I was riding 200 miles or more each week. I believed I had both the aerobic capacity and the muscle strength to maintain a 13.6 mile per average. While true on paper, my actual speed over the course of the 1200 averaged just over 11 miles per hour.

To understand why, you must first recognize that a 1200K is like no other Brevet. A 1200 is an insidious challenger that begins its search for the chinks in your armor from the first mile. When it finds one, it begins tapping on it so lightly and so slowly, that you don’t even notice that it is making a dent. It will let you win for a while, just to build your confidence, so when you do become aware of that little twinge of pain under your knee cap, or that faint cramp in the small of your back, you choose to ignore it because you are having a great ride. Meanwhile, it continues to tap on your weak spot, one pedal stroke after another, until finally you realize, you have a problem.

Riding with an injury on a long distance event is a dangerous game. No matter how physically fit you are, you are not in control of the situation. It is like picking up a hitch hiker in the middle of nowhere, then you look into your rearview mirror, and you realize you have a crazy in the back seat. You are thinking, “If I can just keep this guy calm, I can make it to the next town and get help. But if I do something stupid, and he gets riled up, it could mean the end for me.”

I picked up my hitchhiker in the Rattle Snake Hills. There had been a buzz among the riders about this place; it was a rumored to be one of the spots in the course that can take you down.

It was visible in the distance from the Sunnyside Control, rising slowly and steadily at first, and then steeply up to form a chain of interlocking plateaus that stretched from one end of the horizon to the other. Whatever vegetation had been here in early spring was toast now; the only trees were ones planted to protect the few houses out here from the blistering sun. As I began the climb, I saw shadows of riders taking cover underneath those trees to escape the afternoon sun.

Oddly enough, I didn’t feel the heat. In fact, the sun felt good on my face. I was riding out of the saddle, my eyes locked on the ridge line 15 miles away and a thousand feet above. My heart was strong; my breathing was steady. My spirit was soaring. “I can stay out of the saddle the whole way up,” I said to myself. I laughed out loud and I rode faster.

Now I know this was part of the illusion. Like the Sirens of Greek mythology, who with their beautiful voices mesmerized sailors who approached their island so they would run their ships aground upon the rocky cliffs and drown, the Cascade 1200 had chosen the Rattle Snake Hills to cast its spell on me. Instead of badlands, I saw a garden; instead of pain, I felt inspiration. I was riding stronger and faster than ever before.

It was a foolish thing to do. I had been riding with pain and swelling in my right knee since mid-afternoon that day, icing at Controls and taking Ibuprofen to keep my hitchhiker calm. But somewhere near the top of that ridge, my knee blew up. The hitchhiker was in control and I was along for the ride. It continued that way for the next two days until the swelling reached the point where I could hardly pedal. The Achilles tendon in the same leg grew tight as a rope as froze-up my ankle.

I coasted into a little town called Newhalem about 2:30pm on the final day of the ride. It was there, on a bench outside of a general store, that I decided this ride was over for me. I had given into the pain.

Bill Dussler, a volunteer from the Seattle International Randonneurs sat beside me. He pointed to a map on the side of the building. He traced the route with his finger. He told me I had ridden 650 miles and that virtually all of the climbing was behind me.

“There are two ways to do this thing,” he said. “You can ride down to Marblemount, to Granite Falls, and then to the finish in Monroe. Or you can come back here and do it all over again.”

He ran his finger along the entire route back to Monroe, in the opposite direction.

Bill had never met me before this moment, but he seemed to know me. He understood that not finishing this ride would haunt me until the day I came back and completed it.

Susan France and Peg Winczewski drove up in their SUV and joined Bill in front of me. Peg put her hand on my shoulder.

“What is the problem,” Susan asked.

“My knee … my ankle … I can’t pedal any more,” I said.

“These are things that will heal.”

She didn’t say it, but I knew what it she meant; not finishing this Brevet would leave a scar that would not heal. This was my fiftieth year. There would not be a redo.

These three very experienced riders spent almost an hour helping me work through the pain and sort out the mental barriers that lay between me and the finish line. The next Control was at Marblemount, about 14 miles down the road.

Susan told me I probably wouldn’t make it there or to the finish line in time, but that she and Peg would drive ahead and wait for me.

It was 3:30 pm. I had 8-1/2 hours to ride 102 miles and get to Monroe by midnight. That is 11.7 miles per hour. Under normal circumstances, I could do this. Was I capable of it now?

I got on my bike, clipped my right foot in the pedal and stood up on the crank arm. The Atlantis started moving. I stayed out of the saddle as I rolled out of the parking lot and onto the highway. My speedometer said 15, 16, then 17. I don’t remember the ride to the Marblemount control. But Susan and Peg were waiting there, just like they said.

“You looked good on the bike.” Susan was smiling. Peg filled my Camelback with ice and fresh water, then stuffed a half-dozen oatmeal cookies into my handlebar bag.

“I felt good.”

“You just might be able to make it, but you have to keep moving.” Susan put a half sandwich in my right hand and the other half into my bag. “Eat on the road. We will wait for you in Arlington.”

As I rolled back onto the highway, I noticed that the pain in my knee and ankle wasn’t there. I was riding alone now: the hitchhiker that held me hostage for the past two days was gone. I wanted the Cascade 1200 finisher’s medal more than anything in the world at that moment. I looked down at my computer. It read 15, then 18, then 23 miles per hour.

“I can do this,” I said to myself. And I set out for Monroe, riding with all my heart.

Miss an installment? Read Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Commercial Break.

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