RAIN Ride Report (sorry very long!)
Ride Across Indiana: What an experience. The ride is typically around 160 miles in one day from west to east (Terre Haute to Richmond). This was my 2nd year riding at this event, this year the course was slightly different as the start changed from the Illinois/Indiana border on route 40 (where the majority of the ride takes place) to a small but nice campus in West Terre Haute called Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College total ride was a bit more than 162 miles. Team McArthur comprised of two riders, my father and me, and two in the SAG vehicle, my mother and my father’s long-time friend Howie. We rented dorm rooms at the campus the night before which was great as the start was right out the front door. My time last year was 9 hours and 43 minutes, I had a goal of breaking 9 hours, and a dream goal of breaking 8 hours (super uber dream of finishing in the front pack).
There are 5 official stops along the way normally around 30 or so miles in between give or take. The course is mostly flat with an elevation gain of 3,000 feet over the entire distance comprised of mostly small to medium rollers with no real climbs (one bigger hill toward the end). For me it was very flat as I’m used to riding in the hills and mountains in North Georgia. My plan was to find the front pack and hang on for as long as possible; this would probably mean skipping the official stops and taking hand-ups from our support team. Hand-ups would comprise of fluids (poweraide zero) and food bags (gallon zip-lock bags with a couple of granola/cereal bars and gels). Hand-ups also means that you have to grab it on the fly going nearly full speed (which can be tenuous and caused quite a few crashes on the way). On my bike and in my jersey from the start were 6 bottles filled with poweraide zero, a ziplock baggie full of endurolytes, 6 gels, 4 special k/granola bars, and baggie with my personal stuff (car key, money, credit card, drivers license, and phone). The start went off at 7:00 am sharp, you have 14 hours to finish and there were approximately 1,700 riders signed up. There was a major traffic jam/snafu getting everybody to the start line so there were gobs of people joining in randomly over the first 5 miles from all directions which made it fairly chaotic. Add to that the front peleton just took off at a decent clip right off the bat. So I spent the first couple of miles hammering it trying to bridge the gap, not a good way to start. Everything worked out ok and the pack gelled into a monster peleton comprised of at least 700 people after the first 5 miles or so. I spent the next 20 miles positioning myself up in the peloton as people were going to start dropping and gaps were forming (the front group was already pushing the pace). The peleton started to thin as we approached the first official stop around mile 35 or 36 and after we blew right through the stop the peleton was probably down to 200 or so. My support vehicle was situated about a half a mile down the road from the first stop and I did a bottle exchange (i.e., dropped my empty bottle 100 yards before the car and grabbed one on the fly from Howie as we cruised past). That went well and I was popping 3 endurolytes per hour when I could remember to take them and eating gels and bars as we went along. Unbeknownst to me, that would be the last time I saw my support team for the rest of the ride.
The peleton was pushing a solid 23-24 mph at this point. The group continued to thin out over the next hour or so and we approached the 2nd stop where I had arranged to take another hand-up from my support team, we blew by the stop and all of the support teams, but I couldn’t find my support team. It turned out that they couldn’t get to the 2nd stop in time because of the logistics of supporting two riders at different speeds. I had told them to focus on supporting my father in a tie so that’s what ended up happening (although they tried in earnest to do both). I had a bit of a panic here, as we were only 60+ miles in and I was running low on nutrition and fluids. At this point we headed south of Indianapolis around the city instead of taking route 40 straight through. This was the worst part of the course as it has a lot of turns through small country roads and some big intersections/stop lights. We hit a few stop lights (which would be the only time I stopped for the ride) but kept on going. Around mile 80 or so we hit a stop light that had a bunch of bushed on one side, most of us drove our bikes right to the side and took a natural break (this would be the only bathroom stop for the ride), I barely caught up with the group after that but felt much better, I really didn’t want to lose riding with the fast group due to a bathroom break. At this point there were 70 – 75 people left in the front pack. We blew by the 3rd stop around mile 93, still didn’t see my support and at this point was resigned to the fact that I probably wouldn’t for the rest of the day. I was down to one gel, one bar, and 2 bottles.
After the 3rd stop the attacks started, the strongest riders taking the biggest pulls started to surge ahead and the pace quickened substantially. I had to bridge a couple of gaps and we dropped 10 or more riders. After 5 or 6 miles of attacks the group was around 65 or so and I thought was settling into a manageable pace, I was probably 4/5 of the way toward the back when the front of the peleton surged from 23-24 mph to 28-30 mph. The back 20, including me, were immediately dropped. Those of us who were dropped formed up into a pace line and attempted a chase, but we abandoned hope after exhausting ourselves for a couple of minutes, we just couldn’t gain on the pack. I looked at my bike computer, it was right at 100 miles and we did it in 4 hours and 20 minutes! My best century time was 4:40 prior. 15 or 16 of us formed a double line pace-line and we settled in for the remaining 62 miles. We blew by stop 4 as we turned back onto route 40 around mile 115 or so and now I was completely out of food, fluid, and I had somehow managed to lose my baggie of endurolytes. This stretch of road is relatively flat but mostly uphill at a gentle grade with no shade and was really hot and humid, temp was now in the 90’s (it topped off around 95). Our pace-line was down to 7 and we picked up two more stragglers to make 9 over the next couple of miles, the core of the group were 4 guys from the same team out of Richmond (our destination), two guys from another racing team and three unaffiliated riders including myself. One of the guys from the Richmond team really saved my ride here as he let me take hand-ups from his support team (his wife) and hooked me up with at least 5 or 6 bottles, 2 gels, a clif bar, and 2 packs of sports beans. I was very grateful, but in retrospect, it wasn’t nearly enough food or hydration and losing my edurolytes was about to bite me hard.
At mile 134 I felt my right thigh start to cramp. Ut oh. Two minutes later I was in a massive full blown cramp in my right leg, I dropped to the back of the paceline and let the guys know that I was in distress and might have to drop out of the group. A minute later my left leg joined the party and now I was in a two leg full blown cramp. The pain was so severe that I couldn’t pedal one revolution. I started to drift back, as I wasn’t pedaling, and stood up to try to work out the cramps. I was convinced I was going to DNF, I couldn’t pedal anymore and I was out of fluid/food. Finally after a big gut-check, I started a mantra, it went something like this: “quit being a wuss, you aren’t injured, it’s just a cramp, and move your ass, you didn’t spend all that training time to give up now"….. rinse and repeat a couple of times and then I started pedaling through the pain. The cramps started to work themselves out and I was able to catch back up to the pace-line and continue. I would have cramping the rest of the way, but nothing as severe as what happed at mile 134.
The rest of the ride was a blur of sweat and heat, my eyes were burning from sweat and I was starting to get delirious from low blood sugar/dehydration. We made it over the only big hill and had 7 miles to go. We all caught a 2nd wind and hammered home around 20-22mph and the rest of the paceline had enough in them to sprint to the finish, I let em go, I was just happy to be done at that point. I crossed the line completely exhausted, dehydrated, and cramping, but very happy. I looked at my computer and it read 7:31, holy sh$%! Total time was 7:34 with the stop lights and average pace for the 162 miles was 21.6mph, I finally realized I did it, I rode across Indiana without stopping and smashed my dream goal. I ultimately wasn’t able to keep up with the lead group (the first finisher was around 7:06 or so) but I didn’t care at that point. Official results are not posted yet, but the guy at the finish line seemed to think I finished around 50th out of 1,700 or so. I can’t tell you how happy I am that all the hours of training really paid off! My father soldiered through and finished in 12 hours, also very happy. What a day. I’m actually still recovering!
P.S. i found the guy from the Richmond team after the finish and gave him mucho thanks and some money for hooking me up with his support along the way.
There are 5 official stops along the way normally around 30 or so miles in between give or take. The course is mostly flat with an elevation gain of 3,000 feet over the entire distance comprised of mostly small to medium rollers with no real climbs (one bigger hill toward the end). For me it was very flat as I’m used to riding in the hills and mountains in North Georgia. My plan was to find the front pack and hang on for as long as possible; this would probably mean skipping the official stops and taking hand-ups from our support team. Hand-ups would comprise of fluids (poweraide zero) and food bags (gallon zip-lock bags with a couple of granola/cereal bars and gels). Hand-ups also means that you have to grab it on the fly going nearly full speed (which can be tenuous and caused quite a few crashes on the way). On my bike and in my jersey from the start were 6 bottles filled with poweraide zero, a ziplock baggie full of endurolytes, 6 gels, 4 special k/granola bars, and baggie with my personal stuff (car key, money, credit card, drivers license, and phone). The start went off at 7:00 am sharp, you have 14 hours to finish and there were approximately 1,700 riders signed up. There was a major traffic jam/snafu getting everybody to the start line so there were gobs of people joining in randomly over the first 5 miles from all directions which made it fairly chaotic. Add to that the front peleton just took off at a decent clip right off the bat. So I spent the first couple of miles hammering it trying to bridge the gap, not a good way to start. Everything worked out ok and the pack gelled into a monster peleton comprised of at least 700 people after the first 5 miles or so. I spent the next 20 miles positioning myself up in the peloton as people were going to start dropping and gaps were forming (the front group was already pushing the pace). The peleton started to thin as we approached the first official stop around mile 35 or 36 and after we blew right through the stop the peleton was probably down to 200 or so. My support vehicle was situated about a half a mile down the road from the first stop and I did a bottle exchange (i.e., dropped my empty bottle 100 yards before the car and grabbed one on the fly from Howie as we cruised past). That went well and I was popping 3 endurolytes per hour when I could remember to take them and eating gels and bars as we went along. Unbeknownst to me, that would be the last time I saw my support team for the rest of the ride.
The peleton was pushing a solid 23-24 mph at this point. The group continued to thin out over the next hour or so and we approached the 2nd stop where I had arranged to take another hand-up from my support team, we blew by the stop and all of the support teams, but I couldn’t find my support team. It turned out that they couldn’t get to the 2nd stop in time because of the logistics of supporting two riders at different speeds. I had told them to focus on supporting my father in a tie so that’s what ended up happening (although they tried in earnest to do both). I had a bit of a panic here, as we were only 60+ miles in and I was running low on nutrition and fluids. At this point we headed south of Indianapolis around the city instead of taking route 40 straight through. This was the worst part of the course as it has a lot of turns through small country roads and some big intersections/stop lights. We hit a few stop lights (which would be the only time I stopped for the ride) but kept on going. Around mile 80 or so we hit a stop light that had a bunch of bushed on one side, most of us drove our bikes right to the side and took a natural break (this would be the only bathroom stop for the ride), I barely caught up with the group after that but felt much better, I really didn’t want to lose riding with the fast group due to a bathroom break. At this point there were 70 – 75 people left in the front pack. We blew by the 3rd stop around mile 93, still didn’t see my support and at this point was resigned to the fact that I probably wouldn’t for the rest of the day. I was down to one gel, one bar, and 2 bottles.
After the 3rd stop the attacks started, the strongest riders taking the biggest pulls started to surge ahead and the pace quickened substantially. I had to bridge a couple of gaps and we dropped 10 or more riders. After 5 or 6 miles of attacks the group was around 65 or so and I thought was settling into a manageable pace, I was probably 4/5 of the way toward the back when the front of the peleton surged from 23-24 mph to 28-30 mph. The back 20, including me, were immediately dropped. Those of us who were dropped formed up into a pace line and attempted a chase, but we abandoned hope after exhausting ourselves for a couple of minutes, we just couldn’t gain on the pack. I looked at my bike computer, it was right at 100 miles and we did it in 4 hours and 20 minutes! My best century time was 4:40 prior. 15 or 16 of us formed a double line pace-line and we settled in for the remaining 62 miles. We blew by stop 4 as we turned back onto route 40 around mile 115 or so and now I was completely out of food, fluid, and I had somehow managed to lose my baggie of endurolytes. This stretch of road is relatively flat but mostly uphill at a gentle grade with no shade and was really hot and humid, temp was now in the 90’s (it topped off around 95). Our pace-line was down to 7 and we picked up two more stragglers to make 9 over the next couple of miles, the core of the group were 4 guys from the same team out of Richmond (our destination), two guys from another racing team and three unaffiliated riders including myself. One of the guys from the Richmond team really saved my ride here as he let me take hand-ups from his support team (his wife) and hooked me up with at least 5 or 6 bottles, 2 gels, a clif bar, and 2 packs of sports beans. I was very grateful, but in retrospect, it wasn’t nearly enough food or hydration and losing my edurolytes was about to bite me hard.
At mile 134 I felt my right thigh start to cramp. Ut oh. Two minutes later I was in a massive full blown cramp in my right leg, I dropped to the back of the paceline and let the guys know that I was in distress and might have to drop out of the group. A minute later my left leg joined the party and now I was in a two leg full blown cramp. The pain was so severe that I couldn’t pedal one revolution. I started to drift back, as I wasn’t pedaling, and stood up to try to work out the cramps. I was convinced I was going to DNF, I couldn’t pedal anymore and I was out of fluid/food. Finally after a big gut-check, I started a mantra, it went something like this: “quit being a wuss, you aren’t injured, it’s just a cramp, and move your ass, you didn’t spend all that training time to give up now"….. rinse and repeat a couple of times and then I started pedaling through the pain. The cramps started to work themselves out and I was able to catch back up to the pace-line and continue. I would have cramping the rest of the way, but nothing as severe as what happed at mile 134.
The rest of the ride was a blur of sweat and heat, my eyes were burning from sweat and I was starting to get delirious from low blood sugar/dehydration. We made it over the only big hill and had 7 miles to go. We all caught a 2nd wind and hammered home around 20-22mph and the rest of the paceline had enough in them to sprint to the finish, I let em go, I was just happy to be done at that point. I crossed the line completely exhausted, dehydrated, and cramping, but very happy. I looked at my computer and it read 7:31, holy sh$%! Total time was 7:34 with the stop lights and average pace for the 162 miles was 21.6mph, I finally realized I did it, I rode across Indiana without stopping and smashed my dream goal. I ultimately wasn’t able to keep up with the lead group (the first finisher was around 7:06 or so) but I didn’t care at that point. Official results are not posted yet, but the guy at the finish line seemed to think I finished around 50th out of 1,700 or so. I can’t tell you how happy I am that all the hours of training really paid off! My father soldiered through and finished in 12 hours, also very happy. What a day. I’m actually still recovering!
P.S. i found the guy from the Richmond team after the finish and gave him mucho thanks and some money for hooking me up with his support along the way.
Where are we going?? And why am I in this handbasket??
right now. somewhere. somebody is working harder than you.
right now. somewhere. somebody is working harder than you.
"holy sh$%!" Correctamundo McArthur - what a ride! Thanks for sharing and I am in awe you pedalled through the leg cramps. My heart dropped when I read the second leg cramped, I thought that was it. KUDOS!!!!
I am creating my own revolution and PAMdemonium reigns!
RNY 11/16/2010
SW 270, CW 155, GW 135
1st 5k time 40:34 (Dec 2013)
i forgot to add this video link somebody put on FB... it is the peleton probably around mile 60 or so, i'm toward the back closest to the camera in both clips wearing a blue and white jersey zipped half way down and black under armour under the jersey and black pants. we were cooking....
https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=2050682160080&oid =48734274176#!/video/video.php?v=2050682160080&oid=487342741 76
https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=2050682160080&oid =48734274176#!/video/video.php?v=2050682160080&oid=487342741 76
Where are we going?? And why am I in this handbasket??
right now. somewhere. somebody is working harder than you.
right now. somewhere. somebody is working harder than you.
Proud to "know" you. I sent my boyfriend your report and we are both in awe. Can't wait to congratulate you in person one of these days!
Outstanding to even attempt it, just amazing to kick its ass like you did!
Outstanding to even attempt it, just amazing to kick its ass like you did!
Read my blog, BARIATHLETE I run because I can.
First 5K race October 4, 2009 (34.59) PR 5/22/11 (27:26)
First 5 Mile: January 1, 2011 (50:30)
First 10K: July 4, 2010 (1:03.26) New PR 4/10/11 (1:01.14)
First 10 Mile: April 11, 2010 (1:46.15)
First 1/2 marathon: June 13, 2010 (2:22.21) PR: 5/1/11 (2:17.30)
First Marathon: October 16, 2011: 5:47:20
Goofy Challenge: January 7-8, 2012
If you think you can, you can. If you think you can't, you're right. - Mary Kay Ash
First 5K race October 4, 2009 (34.59) PR 5/22/11 (27:26)
First 5 Mile: January 1, 2011 (50:30)
First 10K: July 4, 2010 (1:03.26) New PR 4/10/11 (1:01.14)
First 10 Mile: April 11, 2010 (1:46.15)
First 1/2 marathon: June 13, 2010 (2:22.21) PR: 5/1/11 (2:17.30)
First Marathon: October 16, 2011: 5:47:20
Goofy Challenge: January 7-8, 2012
If you think you can, you can. If you think you can't, you're right. - Mary Kay Ash
Congrats on the ride.....25mph? Average? Damn...I am a LONG way from that. I'm happy with 15mph on my ride (then again I'm riding a Trek 7200 road bike...not meant for that type of speed).
Lots of people up here did the ride...maybe in a few years.
Seriously though, congrats on your ride. Great job!
Lots of people up here did the ride...maybe in a few years.
Seriously though, congrats on your ride. Great job!
HW: 474 OpW: 406 CW: 267 Twitter - @bwohlgemuth, same with FB
-100lbs 08/17/2010 -200lbs 02/28/2011 OpGoal: 07/05/2011
Abdominoplasty 3/2012
Wow, what an amazing ride! I can't believe you did that, and worked through the cramps and all. What a total inspiration!
Congrats!
Jan
Congrats!
Jan
Bay to Breakers 12K May 15, 2011 (1:54:40) First 5K 5/23/11 (41:22)
Half Marathons: Napa: 7/18/10 (4:11:21) 7/17/11 (3:30:58) 7/15/12 (3:13:11.5)
SJ Rock and Roll: 10/2/10 (3:58:22) Run Surf City: 2/6/11 (3:19:54)
Diva: 5/6/12 (3:35:00)
HW/SW/CW 349/326/176
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein
Half Marathons: Napa: 7/18/10 (4:11:21) 7/17/11 (3:30:58) 7/15/12 (3:13:11.5)
SJ Rock and Roll: 10/2/10 (3:58:22) Run Surf City: 2/6/11 (3:19:54)
Diva: 5/6/12 (3:35:00)
HW/SW/CW 349/326/176
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein
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