moominmolly | we totally did that! (Reply)

I'm very tired.

Today, D and I went out on the tandem and rode 200 kilometers. In previous (pre-pregnancy) years, we would have sort of scoffed at the idea that 200km was a long ride, for us. Anything over 200 miles in a row, sure, now that's a lot. But 125? Pfff, whatever. As long as we don't have to be FAST, we can do anything.

But, well -- we still have that attitude, without having that level of conditioning. Last year, we tried the 200km ride on our spiffy new tandem, but had to bail out at about the halfway point when my ankles just gave out and wouldn't go any further without searing, swelling pain. But, see, this year is a Paris-Brest-Paris year, and I've wanted to ride PBP forever, and this only comes around every four years, and and and, and well, that means that we have to ride the qualifying rides, just in case this year we get to do it.

The hitch: before last Saturday, I hadn't been on a bike all season. But we thought, hell, let's try it anyway. Let's do 100km this weekend, and 200km next weekend! After all, surely we can do that, still. (We are, sometimes, secretly totally cocky.)

Unfortunately, when remembering last year's ride, I forgot that the stock saddle on the tandem was incredibly painful for me. This year, it was even worse -- with no bike conditioning at all, the fact that the seat was too narrow for my pelvis was seriously unbearable. We quit after just under 30 miles, and the last ten of that was complete hell on my ass. I couldn't sit down right for about two days. The first thing I did upon coming home was order a bike seat that I liked online -- we tried every shop along the bike path while biking home, in the hopes of replacing the saddle midride and continuing on, but I'm incredibly picky. I was hoping to bike to work last week to make up for the ride we punked out on, but the weather last week was SO crappy that I just couldn't do it.

So, we were planning for our second ride of the season to be about five times as long as the first one, and we STILL didn't really take it seriously, I don't think. And I have learned a bad bad lesson, because we totally conquered that ride's ass. I mean, really, don't get me wrong, when you put me head to head with a Serious Biker, I will lose, because I am incredibly slow. But I guess I still have enough baseline conditioning to make a go of it.

Here's the magical part, to me: I've been running with

fanw for a few months. Not lots, not fast, but regularly enough that I could feel it changing my body. Now, I'm used to thinking of running as basically ritual abuse of your own body. I mean, it's TERRIBLE for you! Runners get injured ALL THE TIME! And yet -- and yet, I think that that's what saved me, this year. Last year, no amount of ibuprofen could keep me on the bike. This year, my ankle didn't even bother me at ALL until about mile 105, and that was only because I'd taken a standard dose of it at the last rest stop rather than the (doctor-sanctioned) double-dose I'd been taking the rest of the day. When I took another standard dose to bring me back up to my earlier levels, I was fine, half an hour later. So we were slowed by my ankle for half an hour after 100 miles, rather than completely halted after 50. And I really, really don't have anything to attribute that to other than running having strengthened my knees and ankles. My knees, another occasional problem point, didn't even make a peep.

Anyway, I think that riding a tandem also helped make up for a lot of our training flaws (like not having any). If you ride well with your tandem partner, you can make up for each other's weaker spots and wind up going faster on the downhills and the flats. So, David and I were on track to probably tie/beat our best 200k time ever! But then, my ankle started hurting, so we rested and then went slowly for a while, and then 5 miles from the edge had an amazing comedy of errors tool failure that wound up with us borrowing a floor pump from an incredibly friendly passerby and putting a 700x28-32 tube into a 700x25 tire and just hoping it didn't blow out again in the last five miles.

And we STILL finished before sunset. Well, at sunset. But still! But still, but still.

I'm not very coherent right now, but

dilletante is an utterly fantastic ride partner, and I'm lucky to have him.