Red Poppy Ride 2012 ride report.
Okay, last deficient race/ride report, then I'm caught up.
Got a groupon-like-thing to ride Red Poppy for $15, and we'd never done this ride, so I was excited. I was planning on riding Shiner the next weekend as a close-to-century, so I didn't want to do the 100, and Jamie agreed that the 85 sounded good.
We had quite a group assembled to start: me, Karen, Betsy, David, Pam, Jeff, Summer and Nancy. As we headed out, I ended up in the lead, then when we got on calmer roads, Karen rode up beside me and we started chatting, since we hadn't ridden together in ages. At one of the turns, we heard Summer say something behind us, but didn't catch what it was, and were navigating the turn and watching for traffic, and didn't notice she was no longer behind us. We didn't see anyone at all anymore. But we were all doing different distances with different goals, so we knew we weren't all going to end up riding together, so Karen and I rode on. (Evidently Summer had a flat, but fortunately she had many people with her to help. Oops.)
The good: It was nice to ride with Karen again. We caught up on life and training. The volunteers were great. They had delicious cookies and/or cookie bars at the stops we stopped at.
The bad: The wind. It was a tailwind for the first while. Then an unrelenting head/cross wind. Karen is just at the end of her Ironman training, and a stronger rider even when she's untrained, so she was capable of going much stronger than me, and eventually pulled up and let me draft off her. For most of the rest of the time. And even drafting off of her, I kept falling back. It was a hard ride. I felt bad that I was slowing Karen down, but she just kept coming back for me. There wasn't a whole lot of talking for the end of the ride. I was just trying to survive. While Karen was dragging me along into a headwind like there was on wind at all.
We kinda did the ride wrong. We were supposed to start out on the 100 route then turn off onto the 50 at the Poppy Gate. Instead we started on the.. 60ish route? And when we realized our error, we did the 100 mile route for the rest of the way. I was afraid we'd end up back at the school at 50 or 60 miles, but it ended up perfect at 83 miles, which is what Pam said she got having done it the right way.
By the time we got to the school, it was really hot and really windy and really unpleasant. And yet Karen wanted to do 100, so she headed back out to do an out and back to make up the miles. I probably should have been a good friend and offered to join her for that. But I wouldn't have been doing her any favors, as she was probably relieved that she could finally go her own speed without dragging my dying ass along.
So I bid her adieu and changed into my running shoes, happy to have met my goal of finishing my 80 before Matt finished his 100. (Little did I know that Matt was having an incredibly crappy ride, unfortunately due to some of my decisions, and ended up riding 115. Oops again.)
The run was just miserable. Ran back out on the road we'd come in on, and cheered for the cyclists. There was no shoulder, and it wasn't a wide road, so I felt bad for taking up space. But I didn't want to get lost by trying to run elsewhere. It seemed to take forever to get 15 minutes out, and the run back in was just as miserable, but at least I knew I was heading back in toward done.
One of the best parts of the event was the cop at the light right next to the school. Rather than the usual cop standing in the road directing traffic to help protect the cyclists, this cop had the breaker box thing open for the light, and was causing the light to be green for the cyclists to go through. When I was running back in, he had the light green for some cyclists, and I was still a ways off and not moving quickly. But he kept the light green all the way until I got there and went through. Unnecessary, but very much appreciated. It was Hot at that point.
I was very happy to be done. And ate a hot dog.
So.. good event, good course, markings weren't great, volunteers were, race director was soliciting feedback at the end and I think got some good feedback for improvement next year. I'd definitely do this ride again.
Got a groupon-like-thing to ride Red Poppy for $15, and we'd never done this ride, so I was excited. I was planning on riding Shiner the next weekend as a close-to-century, so I didn't want to do the 100, and Jamie agreed that the 85 sounded good.
We had quite a group assembled to start: me, Karen, Betsy, David, Pam, Jeff, Summer and Nancy. As we headed out, I ended up in the lead, then when we got on calmer roads, Karen rode up beside me and we started chatting, since we hadn't ridden together in ages. At one of the turns, we heard Summer say something behind us, but didn't catch what it was, and were navigating the turn and watching for traffic, and didn't notice she was no longer behind us. We didn't see anyone at all anymore. But we were all doing different distances with different goals, so we knew we weren't all going to end up riding together, so Karen and I rode on. (Evidently Summer had a flat, but fortunately she had many people with her to help. Oops.)
The good: It was nice to ride with Karen again. We caught up on life and training. The volunteers were great. They had delicious cookies and/or cookie bars at the stops we stopped at.
The bad: The wind. It was a tailwind for the first while. Then an unrelenting head/cross wind. Karen is just at the end of her Ironman training, and a stronger rider even when she's untrained, so she was capable of going much stronger than me, and eventually pulled up and let me draft off her. For most of the rest of the time. And even drafting off of her, I kept falling back. It was a hard ride. I felt bad that I was slowing Karen down, but she just kept coming back for me. There wasn't a whole lot of talking for the end of the ride. I was just trying to survive. While Karen was dragging me along into a headwind like there was on wind at all.
We kinda did the ride wrong. We were supposed to start out on the 100 route then turn off onto the 50 at the Poppy Gate. Instead we started on the.. 60ish route? And when we realized our error, we did the 100 mile route for the rest of the way. I was afraid we'd end up back at the school at 50 or 60 miles, but it ended up perfect at 83 miles, which is what Pam said she got having done it the right way.
By the time we got to the school, it was really hot and really windy and really unpleasant. And yet Karen wanted to do 100, so she headed back out to do an out and back to make up the miles. I probably should have been a good friend and offered to join her for that. But I wouldn't have been doing her any favors, as she was probably relieved that she could finally go her own speed without dragging my dying ass along.
So I bid her adieu and changed into my running shoes, happy to have met my goal of finishing my 80 before Matt finished his 100. (Little did I know that Matt was having an incredibly crappy ride, unfortunately due to some of my decisions, and ended up riding 115. Oops again.)
The run was just miserable. Ran back out on the road we'd come in on, and cheered for the cyclists. There was no shoulder, and it wasn't a wide road, so I felt bad for taking up space. But I didn't want to get lost by trying to run elsewhere. It seemed to take forever to get 15 minutes out, and the run back in was just as miserable, but at least I knew I was heading back in toward done.
One of the best parts of the event was the cop at the light right next to the school. Rather than the usual cop standing in the road directing traffic to help protect the cyclists, this cop had the breaker box thing open for the light, and was causing the light to be green for the cyclists to go through. When I was running back in, he had the light green for some cyclists, and I was still a ways off and not moving quickly. But he kept the light green all the way until I got there and went through. Unnecessary, but very much appreciated. It was Hot at that point.
I was very happy to be done. And ate a hot dog.
So.. good event, good course, markings weren't great, volunteers were, race director was soliciting feedback at the end and I think got some good feedback for improvement next year. I'd definitely do this ride again.