Mulholland Challenge (2009 version)- just over 100 miles, just over 10,000ft of climbing. The event organizers had to change the course at the last minute due to road construction – they added Mulholland before Decker, and pushed Decker back to mile 80 as opposed to it being at mile 55-60 or so. Fatigue at that point was definitely a factor, especially after factoring in Mulholland before, but overall, it was about 11 miles shorter and 1800 ft of climbing less. The day was long, but well worth it. Here is a map, elevation profile and a recount of my day:
edit: the start was NOT at the red dot – it was at near the 101, right next to ‘Brent’s Junction’
0500 – wake up, change, last minute packing and food – an organic, whole wheat flax waffle peanut butter and banana sandwich… packed the bikes and realized I had my ipod, but no headphones!! 10 hours on the bike with NO music? that could be trouble. Luckily, I find a pair at the Chevron right next to the start…
0630 – arrive and start getting stuff out. It’s 45 degrees out, so to start, I’ve got my arm warmers, leg warmers, base layer, vest, too bad I don’t have full fingered gloves…
0650 – START – check in with at the start line, and start rolling. IMMEDIATELY I wish I had full fingered gloves. In the first 15 min, I do everything from riding with one hand and keeping my other hand in my armpit, trying the hook grip to keep my thumb warm, riding using the base of my palms with my fingers curled together – nothing worked – my fingers damn near froze off… Good thing we hit some hills and slowed down… ‘climbing’ out to PCH let me warm up my fingers and get some blood going while riding at a slower pace (read: less wind chill). I put climbing in quotes b/c really, these are just smaller rollers – nothing compared to the actual mountains… At this point, Joe & I are riding by ourselves – we had passed (or gotten passed) by a total of 4 people.
Topanga to Old Topanga – Joe and I have ridden these at least a dozen times in the last 2 years. Not sure how long it took, but we tried to take it easy to conserve energy… but by the time we get to the top… My quads start feeling like they’re starting to go. I suppose there are 2 ways to look at this… at first, I was worried b/c, well… my quads were starting to fatigue already…! but normally, this happens during my warmup (first 10-15 min of a ride) – but typically, I would have also done a workout on friday and saturday before riding on sunday… so… since I hadn’t done anything else leading up to the ride, maybe it was just a delayed warm-up response…
Coming down Old Topanga – first issue – Joe gets a pinch flat as we start descending. Luckily, it only takes us about 10, MAYBE 15 min to get it taken care of. Time? we’re still ok to make the first checkpoint (it closes at 1015A and was 28 miles in – I think we made it around 945 or so…). If you look at the elevation profile, it was at the 2nd mini peak of the first real climb.
Mulholland/Rock store + Yorba Buena – The problem is, the 2nd checkpoint closes at 11 and is at mile 50, and it includes a steep set of climbs… 22 miles, with steep climbs. The climbs are the Rock Store and Yorba Buena, both of which are longer climbs, with Yorba Buena being one of the pretty steep climbs. I finish the Rock store, look at the clock… and we’re pushing it on time. I don’t know how much time we had, but I remember catching Joe (he wasn’t too far ahead), and saying… we are cutting it CLOSE. So we both go up Yorba as fast as possible, and while I’m worried about gassing out, it doesn’t matter if we don’t make it to the checkpoint. We’re passing people left and right, and our HR’s are probably at their peaks during that point in the ride. I’m watching my watch say 10:52… then 10:53… 10:54… I’m freaking out and my legs are screaming at me… I round the bend on Yorba and I see a group of people… WHEW. BARELY made it at 10:55. We stop just long enough to get the sticker b/c the next stop is at 1215.
Cotharin to Deer Creek – After we get down the short downhill from Yerba, it’s Cotharin, which… is a short but very steep climb (see roughly mile 56 on the elevation profile). We’re both pushing for time, so we’re moving at this point, but as we get to the base, Joe pulls to the side behind some lady, so I figure he’s helping her out with something. I get up and hammer all the way up, thinking… is it leveling out here? here? where?? I get to right before the giant downhill, and we’ve got half an hour, so I’m like cool… I’ll wait for Joe… and I sit there for 10 min, and FINALLY he makes it up. I’m like what happened? apparently his quads were cramping already… not a good sign. We blast down the downhill and make it at like 11:50 – plenty of time to spare. This is the end of the checkpoints that have some sort of timing constraint…
Mulholland from PCH – If you’re looking and following the elevation profile, we take PCH after the downhill and basically have some flat riding on PCH… for like 3 miles. Then it’s a left on Mulholland at mile 65, roughly… and it’s a 7.5 mile climb up Mulholland. With no time constraint, Joe and I ride up it somewhere between 6-7 miles an hour, keeping our HR’s under 140 or so – a chance to ‘rest’ ourselves before Decker. It took forever, but we needed the slight recharge after racing to the other checkpoints. We check in at the next stop (at the top of the hill @ mile 73 or so) and take a break. We stretch, we rest, I go to the bathroom, we eat… i mean, PBJ’s, bananas, larabars, and a snickers bar. We refill our bottles (we had refilled them at the other checkpoints too), and head out. A nice downhill on Encinal to PCH, and close the loop to Decker.
Decker (THIS is the mindfuck of the ride) – so we’re 80 miles in, we ran ourselves ragged, and just finished a sustained climb before the break… then it’s Decker. We’re both in our easiest gear, and we STILL spend the first 15 min going up the hill standing and pedaling as hard as we can… yet the hill is so steep that we’re going slow to the point where all we do as we turn the pedals is try to keep from falling. Funny thing – it JUST so hapened that my playlist got REALLY good at Decker – it got me pumped, but didn’t make it any easier…). After 20 min on Decker, it finally gets less insanely steep. We’re still averaging 5mph or slower at this point, but at least we don’t have to stay standing on the pedals to keep moving… At this point, there is at least another 45 min on the climb – and being that it’s a sustained hill, joe starts pulling away from me as expected…………… for me, as I go and keep on moving, I am thinking gotta make it up, gotta make it up… people are stopping on the side to rest, some people are walking to rest… and some people who had passed me earlier b/c they had even more easier gears than me (I’ve got a 54/39 double up front and 12/27 in the rear – some had triples, some had mtb gears)…
Decker (cont’d) – Every time I passed someone who was stopped or walking I thought to myself… SHIT, maybe it’s a good idea to take a rest and come back stronger… but every time that thought came across my mind, I swear, I could hear Vanessa asking me “how bad do you want it??” I’d remember seeing Eric do Solvang tucked into his shell as he kept his head down and hammered through his first century… and I could hear Nathan talking about his 5k, and how he said… this is supposed to suck… Then I’d see the people stopped and say to myself… I’m not going to stop until I get to the top. I didn’t buy granny gears to make it easier… I didn’t sign up b/c it was as easy series… and it’s called King of the Mountains. This is a challenge, and I’m not backing down. Surprisingly enough – I got to the top seemingly faster – and it DEFINITELY felt easier than last week, even though we had done 80 miles before even coming out to the ride. Probably the best feeling of the day. The rest stop was at the top of Decker, and it was AWESOME.
Decker was basically the end of the ride. Then it was just coming down and back to the car, with nothing but small rollers – Joe and i were conversing and joking around with a few people who left the last rest stop out of Decker with us…
1625 – we cross the finish line and check in. YES. In closing – the ride was not as hard as I had expecting. It was by no means easy, but outside of being pushed to make those first couple check stations (which was how the course was designed to make it more of a challenge) – the ride just took a while, that’s all. I feel that I did pretty well considering all the training that I did for this – at MOST 1 day a week of cycling and crossfit being the base/majority of my training for the ride. Big thanks to TCA for prepping me for these rides. 1 down, 2 to go…
Intake for the day:
Breakfast: 2 whole grain, flax waffles w/ peanut butter and a banana
During the ride: 5 GU shots, 1 Larabar, 1.5 peanut butter sandwiches, 1 snickers bar, 1 cliff bar, 5 bottles of 2/3 strength cytomax, 1 bottle of HEED (cytomax from Hammer), 1 banana, 1 small pack of Tums
Dinner: Lucilles BBQ combo w/ beef ribs & beef brisket.
Ride Stats: 9.5 hours to complete, 8.5 hours roughly of ride time, average HR of 139, 6500 calories burned during the ride. Hamstrings, quads and calves ALL almost cramped.