Math Leagues and Haymakers

There hasn’t been much to write about in the past few weeks. The weather for the last few rides has been sunny, I didn’t hardly get lost, and even a fund raiser we put together was pretty successful.

And all this good news makes for terrible writing material. Having good things happen just isn’t funny.

The 100-miler I did was so amazing – every turn had color coded markings before, during and after each turn. The only way they could have made it simpler was to put my bike on rails. I tried my hardest to get myself lost, but to no avail. The best I could muster was getting slightly befuddled as to which parking lot the ride started.

This past weekend’s ride I started about a half-hour ahead of the main group, so I could head up to my second cousin Aidden’s Christening (baptism) party. Again, the weather was accommodating.

It was slightly cool, and a bit humid, and it rained for just a bit, but the only downside was that all the salty goodness that I was saving in my helmet ran down and deposited on my glasses. I think if most people took a good look at what came out of their pores when they exercised, the fitness industry would be crippled on the spot.

Since I have had no time to train during the week, getting about 15 minutes and 45 minutes of total training in apart from the marathon rides on Saturdays, my strength has been slipping. In spite of my lead, a number of folks overtook me in the latter party of last Saturday’s ride, which darkened my mood to complement the inclement weather. And there was a new face in the crowd – Peter.

Peter is a triathlon junkie, plain and simple. I did a mini one once (mountain bike, kayak, run) in 1999 before my knees decided that my running days were through, and it was fun, but I didn’t take the whole thing very seriously. But tri junkies take it all very seriously.

At one of the rest stops, Peter explained to us how you can save a few seconds by taping the tops of GU to your crossbar, that way you don’t have to rummage for the little packets of Manna from Heaven and you don’t have to fumble to tear them open.

We just looked at him the way dogs tilt their heads quizzically at bicycles. Save a few seconds? This isn’t a race, and we’re going to be riding for about 6 hours so what was a few seconds here or there going to do? He just stared back at us, not getting how important seconds can be in a triathlon. We might as well have been speaking different languages to each other.

While the guy had the passion for tris as strongly as the kid who doesn’t get why others don’t understand why it’s so cool to be champion of the Math League, this guy could ride. My feeble legs kept up with him for a bit, but when he decided to get going, he quickly became a lycra-coated speck on the horizon.

You know what, I just remembered that I did miss the very last turn on that ride. I hope that makes every one feel a bit better that everything is right in the world.

After the ride, I headed up to Walden, NY, the bucolic town where my cousin Veronica and her husband Dave are raising three amazing kids. Because of the ride, we were arriving a few hours late, and most had “loosened up” by the time we got there.

Now, when you look at yourself every day, you don’t notice changes. But apparently I look as though I’ve lost some weight (Actually, I weigh about 5 lbs. less than when I started, at about 190 lbs.). Looking so apparently healthy, one of my aunts decided that she needed to gauge my level of fitness by planting a haymaker right above my belly button. As I was curled up in a ball of pain, I don’t know if she got a satisfactory answer.

I must say, if getting sucker punched at family parties is an advantage to being healthier, I am looking forward to chunking up again.

Oh, I am about $700 from my goal, so if you haven't gotten around to making on a donation, now would be an excellent time. You can mail me a check (245 5th Street, #1 Jersey City, NJ 07302) made out to ""Leukemia & Lymphoma Society" or save yourself the 39 cents and click on the link below:

http://www.active.com/donate/tntnonj/tntnonjEFlemin

Ironwomen and Pewtermen

In general, doing anything for one hundred miles is tough, unless it’s napping in the backseat during a road trip, of course.

Well, this past Saturday left no time for coasting, as SuperDwight pointed out after all was said and done. In biking, riding over flat ground means never getting the break of coasting down a hill. And Lincroft, it’s as flat as Iowa. But there were no killer Bisselesque hills, either, so I had that going for me.

And folks, the Farmlands people invented a system so full-proof that even I, the guy that needs a compass to get out of his bedroom, couldn’t screw up. Every turn there was color-coded arrows to clearly and beyond a shadow of a doubt illustrate which was the way to go. I didn’t miss a single turn.

Now, I am not one to gloat, but there was some one, and some one that gave us the “Stooges” moniker, that did in fact miss a turn in a course so clearly marked that even I, the Count of Clueless, the Misfit of Mapquest, the Clown-king of compass, couldn’t muff.
I won’t name names, sufficed to say that her name rhymes with Milarie.

But I did find a way on Saturday to get lost, none the less. To be certain I got there on time, I got there so early (6:40am) that some guy in a bright yellow outfit was not yet outside to direct me to Lot 2, where the check-in occurs. I drove around every part of the campus but where the ride began. I found a dozing police officer in his cruiser and he straightened me out.

At Lot 2, I realized that the road biking jersey was the final resting place for every horrible, awful and otherwise nausea-inducing color. Either road biking causes color blindness, or shows like “How Do I look?” have no worries about subjects for future shows. The Farmlands jersey (I know some of you liked them), looked to me like the rejected costume for the 80s Christian hairband Stryper.

So, after Becky, Nancy and a few others were done laughing at me for even screwing up finding a parking lot, we all got checked in, fed, fueled, prepped and otherwise ready to go. Dwight snapped shots of we three that decided that riding 100 miles was somehow a good idea. And off we went at about 7:30am.

Becky, I found, like the rest of us that like to ride up front, loses all sense of pace the moment some one appears in front of her that she has a remote chance of passing. Hey, I am guilty of it myself, but I am no Becky, so I held back a bit.

We hit the first rest station at 25 miles in, and folks were snacking away as if they just spent a week in a dessert, which struck me as a bit odd. The Farmlands people did a fantastic job of keeping the station well-stocked with a plethora of choices from something called a Lara bar to sliced oranges. I didn’t realize that the PB&J was such a popular staple in the roadie set.
But there was only one Portapottie, so Nancy decided to bushwack a bit and head into the woods as nature had called. But the only thing she ended in relief of was a few ounces of blood from the thorn bushes she unintentionally wandered into. And after a good gouging, she ended up on the pottie line anyway.

Around mile 30 or so, I realized that I was going to have a hard time keeping up with these two rock stars. These two are made of iron, and I am pewter, at best. But I kept on going, in part to see how far I could last, and who wants to be by themselves for 6 hours or more?

At the 50-mile rest stop, I realized how strong a lock Apple has on the mobile music player. It seemed every third person had the tell-tale white ear buds protruding from their earlobes. We loaded up our water bottles once again and off we went.

Somewhere after this I saw my first spill. A rider must have gone around a turn going at least 30. At that speed, he didn’t have time to react to the hillock-sized speed bump that some one decided to put on a side road. The guy clearly had his bell rung. Some one said he hit the bump so fast that he caught air. An ambulance was on the way, and enough folks were giving him first aid, so we headed on.

This is running kinda long, so I will skip ahead. It was nearly exactly at mile 70 that my tank went to E, and the needle slipped hard and fast. Becky and Nancy quickly became specks on the horizon and I struggled to figure a way to finish the next 30 miles. Gatorade? The Clifbar I had (mint chocolate flavored), but wait – Eureka! As a fluke, I threw one of those GU things in my back pocket.

For those that don’t know, GU (pronounced “goo”) and similar products, is something resembling runny icing with a mix of sugar, glycogen and caffeine. I tore the top open and squeezed. Then I realized I should have had the open end in my mouth first, as it ran all over my hand. Yes, I licked it off. (it was PowerGel, double caffeine, Tangerine flavor, for the curious)

That stuff is a close to a miracle as you can get with food. Within a minute or two, I went from Zero to Hero and I toughed it out for the next 10 miles until the 80-mile rest area. Becky and Nancy were waiting for me there, of course. And after scarfing down an oatmeal cookie, a banana and some gorp, we hit the road. Yes, they once again disappeared on the horizon, but I did finish in just under six hours.

Infectious Stoogerie

It’s a fact; the general idiocy of “the Stooges” is so virulent that a HAZMAT team should be called in.

Yes, stoogerie is in fact contagious, and even at small doses. Case in point: Eric and Paul, just two of the stooges, were joined two Saturdays back by Eric “GPS” Dickson.

On this sunny and inviting Saturday, Paul very quickly proved that his symptoms were active. On the very first turn of the “Alumni Ride” Paul blew by the turn like a man with his fair on fire. Dickson and I had to chase him down to get him back on track.

Now, I mentioned that stoogerie is contagious. Now, as is our fashion, Paul and I and Mr. Dickson launched ahead of the rest of the group. But we had Dickson, so Paul and I felt secure in our chances of staying on course. But Stoogeitis was too powerful for even Mr. Dickson, too, it seems.

As we rolled up on an intersection, Dickson went into full GPS mode, trying to figure out if we were to make a left, or plod straight ahead. But he devoted so much attention to the task that he missed a subtle detail: Paul, who rode directly in front of Dickson, had, in fact, come to a complete stop.

So, at a speed no greater than 2 mph, Dickson smacked right into the back of the stationary Paul. Unfortunately, being a bit ahead of the two, I missed the whole thing, only hearing the clatter of aluminum. I turned to see Dickson sprawled across the street, which was a bit curious considering that there wasn’t a single thing in the road and not so much as a divot in the asphalt to trip him up. And it was right then that every one else rolled up.

(It was at some point here, where our groups met, that the Stooge bug must have jumped to a new host. Later at the barbeque, I discovered that a few riders returned having done a bit more than the proscribed 63 miles.)

So, Dickson became the third stooge on this particular ride. Later on our ride, another of the 40 or so in the Northern NJ contingent rolled up on us, and asked what the next turn was. Upon answering, he was off, and we never saw him again. The irony was, what he was looking for was us. He wanted to find the front of the pack, and kept right on going until the end of the ride, looking in vain for folks he had passed 40 miles earlier. The irony was, he didn’t ask if we were the front of the group…go figure.

With about 10 or so miles left of so, we popped into a local convenience store. Inside were, as you would expect to find now the weather is warm, the super enormous mega sized and deeply artificial freezy pops. I watched the bikes outside, so they asked me what flavor I wanted – “Red”.

While we noshed on our frozen confections and our tongues were dyed a frightening array of colors, the main body of our group whizzed by. But I didn’t care. I had my brain-freeze inducing pop in hand and I was going to enjoy it. I ended up dropping half of this stalactite of sugar, food coloring and water into one of my water bottles. It’s not quite Gatorade, but it sure tastes better.

At the end of the Alumni Ride, SuperDwight already had the charcoal going to heat up burgers, dogs and other sausage-shaped delictibles. Jeff the chef served up some macrobiotic (whatever that means) smoothies, which were excellent, but left us wondering who carries a blender in their trunk. Some folks surruptitiously enjoyed a beer or two, though I won't name names to protect the guilty. I had a few burgers and haggled with a few people over what to write and what to leave out.