Event: Spindeltop Spin

Beaumont, Texas

6/6/2015

4^th Attempt to Cycle 100 Miles in 5 hours

We came back to Beaumont with a plan and the finest support team on the planet for another attempt to finally achieve that goal of cycling 100 miles in 5 hours. And we did it, but it certainly didn’t go according to plan!

My riding partner Robert Parker suggested the 5 hour challenge in the spring of 2012 while attempting to do the Fiesta Wildflower 100-mile ride. We failed because of the nearly 3000+ feet of hills. One hundred miles in that amount of time is never easy, but add in lots of hills and it makes it very difficult. It means riding the whole distance averaging 20mph without stopping, or riding better than 20mph with stops. Runners have told me that this effort is similar to running a marathon in less than three hours and 30 minutes. Not a lot of people can do it, but really good runners or elite runners do so easily. Good cyclists can ride 100 miles in five hours by teaming up with others; only the best cyclists can do it solo. Our goal was to just be good.

We made our second attempt at this goal two months after the Fiesta Wildflower in June 2012 at the Beaumont Spindletop Spin – chosen for its flat course with only 600 ft of climb for the entire 100 miles. We failed, but came close. I made my third attempt two months after the Spindletop Spin at the Katy Flatland. Unfortunately, 20 miles into the ride I crashed, ripped my cycling clothes and fell on my shoulder and had to recover for months from that injury. I still completed the ride, but was too beat up to do it in less than five hours. After three failed attempts, I shelved the goal for a while, until now – 2015.

 

Preparing for the Ride

With some of the worst rainstorms in Texas history, preparing for this long distance ride in the spring of 2015 was difficult. It either rained every day or it threatened to rain. And when it rained, it rained hard, flooding homes and roads throughout Texas, making life miserable for everyone and hard on cyclists. Therefore, the most we could do for our long rides was 50 miles (or less), once a week on weekends and doing one hill climbing ride during weekdays.  Parker rode even less as he put much of his time into running. In order to be well trained, we both needed to get in at least two to three 70 plus mile rides, along with multiple shorter rides in the final weeks leading up to Beaumont. We at least got a tough 45 plus mile ride in the Sunday before Beaumont.  A very competitive IRONMAN cyclist joined the group that day and pushed us hard. As a result, Parker and I felt confident that we could ride hard and fast for at least 50 miles, but were unsure if we could finish 100 miles strong. Parker and I would need to work as a team to pull each other through the final 50 miles.

The Plan

Join the lead pack (group of riders) and hang with them as long as it holds together. Then, we would work as a two-man team to pull each other through the remaining miles to the finish. I also planned to use my tri-bike to improve aerodynamics for when Parker and I rode on our own. We would try to maintain a 21 mph average speed and make one quick stop at the 60-mile point to refill our water bottles.

To reduce our stop time, our fabulous support team (Marcia, her sister Suzanne and Margaret Broeder Golias) would be at the roadside waiting for us with everything needed for a grab-and-go stop.They would track our location and speed over the Internet though a feature on my new Garmin bike computer called Live Link.

Since the official route was only 95 miles, we planned to add an extra five miles to the course by doubling back on HWY 105 at the 84-mile mark. And, because there are  several stop lights the last 12 miles of the route, we added even more miles in the double back so we would finish the 100 miles before hitting the lights. To better understand the plan and the route, see the following video.

The Trip to Beaumont

Parker, Marcia and I left San Antonio around noon on Friday, hoping to get through Houston before the Friday afternoon rush hour traffic. We just made it, only getting caught in a little traffic. We picked up our ride packets at the downtown Beaumont event center start/finish and then went to Casa Olé so Marcia could eat their famous hamburger. That’s right, a hamburger at a Mexican food restaurant.  We then went to Marcia’s aunt’s house to stay the weekend.  Kathryn and James are such incredibly nice folks. We came in with all our stuff as if we were moving in; they have the longest house I have ever seen. We slept in the western wing and would take trips to the east wing to sit and talk in the kitchen. They also have a little three-legged dog that truly became our friend and inspiration.

It’s Ride Time

Here we are early in the morning preparing our water bottles and getting ready for the ride.

We have a bad habit of being late or just barely making it to ride events, but this time we made it to the start with a couple of spare minutes. Not a cloud hung in the sky, telling us that the sun would beam down on us from beginning to finish in hot 90+ degree temperatures. We had minimal wind, but oddly blowing from the north. At 7am ride organizers yelled “Start” and Parker and I peddled our way to the front. We did not start our Garmin bike computers until 7:02 so we could weave our way to the front and get up to speed. We immediately teamed up with a group of ten or twelve riders that got out front as the ride went down Calder road; they averaged between 21 to 24mph. This is exactly the size of group we hoped to find, traveling at a perfect speed. For the first few miles, the group was disorganized, but by mile 10, the group began to organize into a double pace line.

 

This pack made riding easy because we drafted behind the front riders, although my heart rate was higher than expected.  This may have been because I was more tense than normal. The riders moved around a lot and didn’t keep a straight pace line. But the major reason for the tension and higher heart rate may have been that I was riding my tri bike for the first time in a crowd. Tri bikes are harder to ride and less stable than road bikes. Even worse, they are not very effective in a pack of riders. The aerodynamics of a tri bike has little value when the wind is being buffeted by riders in the pack.

Things clipped along as we passed the 15-mile mark averaging 22.2mph (max speed 27.3mph). Our phenomenal support team yelled along the roadside “You can do it. You can do it.” What a feeling!

Then everything changed as I crossed the 20-mile mark, just under an hour into the ride. We crossed over some especially bumpy railroad tracks. I remember hitting one rail really hard. My one and only spare water bottle bounced out, hit the road and spilled all the water inside. Now I had only my primary water supply left — not enough to get me to the planned stop at 60 miles. Although it only took me a couple of minutes to retrieve my bottle and get back to riding, I now rode alone. More than 200 yards ahead, the pack rode on and I had no one behind me with whom to team up. I could feel an immediate difference in effort to maintain speed over 20mph.  Below you’ll find a graph segment of my heart rate before and after dropping the water bottle. Before dropping the bottle, my heart rate averaged under 140bpm . But as soon as I began riding alone, my heart rate stayed consistently above 170bpm. Although I have a normally high heart rate when I ride, sustaining a heart rate above 170 for the next four hours was not going to be easy.

As I turned north on Hwy 326, it got even worse. A slight north wind hit me and I definitely felt it. The road surface changed from smooth asphalt to rough chip seal.  My average speed dropped to 20.9mph. Parker and the pack remained in sight, but I had no way to catch them; I would have had to exert too much energy too soon in the ride to catch them. That’s when my first thought about not hitting the five-hour goal arose. Then our amazing support team drove by. I yelled at them to stop at the Hwy 105 intersection, roughly three miles up the road. That motivated me to push a little harder and my average speed jumped back up to 21.5mph.  The team awaited me as I entered the Hwy 105/Hwy 326 rest stop, 29 miles into the ride. I felt privileged to be supported by beautiful ladies, cleaning my glasses, wiping my face with a cold towel and giving me a new water bottle. I recognized some of the riders in the pack that I dropped. I thought for a second that Parker may have stopped too, although I hoped he didn’t and stuck with the plan. What happened with the pack is what I had predicted. Although most of the pack stopped but a small group of other riders kept going. Earlier I had noticed that several rides had four water bottles, telling me they planned to go the whole distance without stopping. That meant Parker had a good pack of riders to bullet his way through the wind.

It took me less than three minutes to get in and out of the stop. Back on Hwy 326 going north again, I again remained alone. I did catch up to several riders and asked them to team up, but they only drafted behind me for a while and then dropped off (no relief at all).

Hwy 326 began to wear on me; the whole 21 mile long leg of 326 had a slight north wind. The constant vibration of the rough chip seal was also having an impact. My feet started to numb and that slowed me down. The worst chip seal is chip seal that has been freshly laid and this was new chip seal – a few sections looked only days old. From the Hwy 105 stop to Hwy 770 my average speed slowed to 19.3mph and my heart rate stayed over 170bpm. The 326 leg seemed to take forever.

Then several good things happened. When I turned southwest onto Hwy 770, the road turned to smooth asphalt (felt so good) and I no longer felt the north wind. Next, the portion of the original lead pack that stopped at the Hwy 105 rest stop caught up to me. Oh, what a relief! For the remainder of Hwy 770, we averaged 22.2mph and hit a max speed of 28mph. This highlights the impact on speed that riding with a well-organized group has versus riding alone. The ride suddenly got fun again! With this handful of riders, we frequently traded taking the lead into the wind and I took the lead four times over the 14-mile segment.

We ended the Hwy 770 segment with the one planned rest stop. While the other riders went on to the organized rest stop, our amazing support team met me on the roadside. Not only did they replaced my water bottles, but also wrapped a wet cold towel around my hot neck, provided shade from the hot sun, cleaned my dirty sunglasses and made me feel like a cycling king. Oh what a feeling! I asked if they had seen Parker and they said no. So, I told them to find him because he didn’t have enough water to go the whole distance. Then, I asked them to meet me at the end of Hwy 105 where we turn onto Keith Road.

The stop took only four minutes. I left with my wonderful support team screaming, “You can do it.”  I never forgot that, particularly later on when I was riding alone again and the heat became unbearable.

The route turned southeast heading down Hwy 105 and later it headed straight east. I caught back up to the pack that also stopped for a couple of minutes. For the next 12 miles we rode at a good pace of 22.5mph on smooth asphalt road. I noticed as we turned off Hwy 770 and on to Hwy 105, it seemed to suddenly get hot. We left the shady piney woods of Hwy 770 where the temperatures were in the mid 70s, and hit the open hot sun where the temperature jumped to over 90 degrees.

 

Then, it happened to me again! I hit a bump (not railroad tracks this time), not a big bump but big enough to lose my water bottle. Again, I went back and got it and this time water remained inside. Good, because without it, I could not have made the final 30 plus miles without stopping again for water. But, once again, I rode alone. For the next 10 miles my average speed dropped to 19.7mph. Because I had plenty of water, I passed the big rest stop at the junction of Hwy 105 and Hwy 326. But the pack of riders that I WAS with, did stop and I passed them up.

I did not know this until they caught back up with me another 10 miles down the road near the Hwy 105 intersection and Keith Rd.  I once again latched on to the pack and my (our) pace picked back up to 22.6mph, but that was only for a couple of miles. As we approached the turn to Keith Rd, I made my planned turnaround to head back up HWY105 as the pack turned down Keith Rd. Therefore I was alone, again.  I told our fabulous support team to meet me at the HWY105/Keith Rd intersection because I wanted to get there help on identifying the turnaround point to come back to the finish. There weren’t there. Darn!

So after 84 miles into the ride I started heading back up HWY105 now heading west to add on more miles needed to get a true 100 miles. I felt miserable.  It was hot with no relief from the sun (no clouds at all). I felt demoralized watching other riders head the other direction towards the finish. It just did not seem right “going the wrong way”. Therefore my average speed slowed down to only 18.8mph.

My plan was to go a total of 6.1 miles and then turnaround again to head back the right direction, but I actually made my turn too soon, only 5.3 miles into the backtrack. At least when I did make the turn, I started to feel a little better, because I was now heading the right direction (east) towards the finish. The last 5.3 miles eastward on HWY105 I did increase my speed a bit to 19.7mph.

 

As I tuned south on Keith Rd my speed slowed down to 18.1mph but I still was at a good overall pace of 20.8mph for my 100 mile goal.  I wanted to go faster (my legs not worn out), but the heat began to take its toll now topping out at 98 degrees with no clouds to shade me. The wind blowing across my face was hot, no longer cooling me off. My water bottle was hot so I got no relief from the water. I was thinking at the time it felt like the “Hotter than Hell” ride a few years back when the temperature hit a record high of 109. At one point on Keith Rd my legs began to cramp, but it did not last long. Fortunately I did not have to slow down, but it was a warning sign that I had to be careful.  Although the ride down Keith Rd to the 100 finish was only 5.4 miles, it felt like it was taking forever. I remember constantly looking down at my Garmin as I watched every tenth of a mile slowly tick off.

Finally I turned left on to Phelan blvd for the last mile. When I looked down at my Garmin when I hit the 100 mile mark, my average speed for the whole trip was 20mph. I did it! When I looked at the detailed data later on, my actual speed was 20.02 mph. Another way of looking at it was I covered 100.06 miles in 4:59.54, averaging exactly 20.0mph.  That’s close,  very close, but all I wanted.

 

I pulled off the road into a car wash and stopped in the shade. I was very hot and tired. I sat down to rest for a few minutes and to my surprise Margaret (our unbelievable support team) drove up. She had rags soaked in ice water that I put over my head. It felt so good. After a few minutes I got back on the bike and headed down the final 5 miles to the finish with Margaret in the car close by. When I came to the I10 overpass (a small hill at best), both my legs began to cramp. I almost had to stop but when I got to the top of the overpass, the cramps went away and the ride to the finish was easy.

 

 

Where was Parker?

I did not have a clue where Parker was while I was on the bike. I hoped he was ahead of me, stayed with the pack and the support team found him to offer help and motivation.  When I got to the finish and saw Parker, I found out that is exactly what happened.  When I dropped my bottle the first time, Parker did stay with the lead pack for much of the ride. He maintained an average speed of 22.2mph all the way to the 60 mile planned rest stop.  He stopped at the event rest stop to refill his water bottles (he was completely dry).  Unfortunately the support team missed him.

He left the rest stop with only one other person from the pack he was riding with because the others kept going since they had additional bottles for the whole ride. Parker and his new found friend picked up the pace to more than 24mph for the next 10 miles in an attempt to catch up with the lead pack. They did catch the pack but used up valuable energy to do so and Parker was very tired. This is a testament to the power of Parkers legs. I would have had great difficulty in maintaining that pace, and frankly likely not been able to.

He then road with the pack rotating through the ride leaders for the next 7.5 miles averaging 22.1mph. Then finally the amazing support team found him, and Parker stopped for a break at the 77 mile mark on HWY105.

The good news was he received wonderful care from the support team but the bad news was he lost the pack when he stopped. His stop was only 5 minutes but he was now alone (as I was for much of the ride) as he turned down Keith road and on to the finished for the last 22.5 miles.


He did not do the planned turnaround on HWY105 to get extra miles, because he was not as familiar with the planned route as I.  Parker’s pace slowed down to 19.4 mph for the next 15 miles till he came to the I10 overpass. He too got cramps in both legs and had to stop for almost 5 minutes to let the cramps work out. From there he rode the reaming 4 miles crossing the finish and making several loops around the nearby streets to get his full 100 miles. With that he completed 100 miles in a superb  4 hours and 51 minutes averaging 21.4mph.

Here is a video showing our progress for the entire route. About two thirds through the video I had to split the screen into two displays because Parker and I took separate paths and the software could not track both of us in a single display when we made the route split.

 

Thoughts

We were both relieved and pleased that we achieved our goal, 100 miles in 5 hours.  That is the bottom line for this effort. But, it would have been even better if Parker and I could have stayed together the whole 100 miles. Dropping my bottle on the railroad tracks was a game changer, disrupting the whole plan. I discovered after the ride that my bottle cage was broken, no way to hold a bottle over any rough road. I do not know how or when it broke.

It is interesting to note that Parker averaged 22.4mph riding with a pack/partner up to the 77 mile mark where he stopped and had to ride alone from that point on. I averaged a similar (but slightly less) 22.2mph over the 46 miles I had a pack to ride. And for the remaining 50 plus miles when I road alone I averaged 19.57mph and Parker averaged a similar 19.4mph for the 23 miles he road alone. Therefore I conclude we were fairly equal in our efforts and results with Parker ending up with a faster time (4:51) because he had much more time riding with a pack.

And I think if Parker and I had managed to stay together and teamed up for all those miles where we did not have a pack, we could have significantly improved the 4:51 time. Also, I think Parker still had more horsepower in his legs that could have surpassed me and broke the 4:30 time.

For me the time riding alone was miserable. Even on the Tri bike (which helped), it was not fun. It is always a lot more fun riding with a friend or group. But, this time it was especially miserable (hot, tiring and boring) and that surprised me. I rode my tri bike a few months earlier in a 12 hour solo race.  I had to drop out of that race after 2 flat tires, but I was able to average just under 20mph through 93 miles riding 100% alone and I still had plenty of energy to ride the remaining 6 plus hours. In that effort, riding solo was not necessarily fun, but it was not miserable.  I believe the big difference was the sun. In the 12 hours race it was mostly cloudy, the heat was not a problem. In the Beaumont 100, it was 100% clear skies with the sun beaming down the whole ride. The last 50 miles it was especially hot and it drained me, affecting both my performance and enjoyment of the ride.

Even with all that what-if thinking, I know that both Parker and I were extremely pleased with our accomplishment and especially our illustrious support team. Marcia, her sister Suzanne and Margaret were amazing. It felt so good to be treated like kings and they really helped us succeed.