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| Drew and Donovan, part of the Swiftwick crew |
Saturday was freezing in the morning, but I had to get up and ride my bike; there was no avoiding the ride this morning, because I was headed downtown to help support the Tom King/Gupton Jeep 5K and Half Marathon. I had as much on as I thought necessary to keep me warm, but it wasn’t enough. About half an hour into the race, my fingers and toes were frozen and I think I couldn’t have shifted if I’d have had to. I was with the lead woman, so when she finished, I got off my bike and went inside, found someone to help me unclip my helmet because I seriously couldn’t feel my fingers, asked someone on the wait staff for a cup of hot water, held that for a little while, ate some warm food, and then went back outside once I was finally warm enough to shift (nearly 40 minutes later). By then it had warmed up slightly, so I didn’t totally freeze again as I rode to the end of the race and then back to the start, just making sure that everyone who was still out on the course was OK. I ended up riding 2:06:40 and 23.41 miles, averaging 11.1 mph (pretty slow for a ride but fast for a run). I’ll count it as saddle time but not necessarily work miles.
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| No HR data, but this shows the speed and flatness of the ride |
Race support was ending at 11, so Valerie met me at the stadium for a route Cali and mapped for us. We didn’t know the areas we were riding in and took a few wrong turns or missed turns or something, but we made it home so we were alright. There were quite a few decent climbs and what felt like a headwind the entire time, but we weren’t cold, there’s wasn’t much traffic, and we both felt great. It turned out to be a beautiful day for a ride. We rode 2:34:00, 41.87 miles, 16.3 mph (40.4 max), and we climbed 3,113 feet and descended 3,116 feet.
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| Great route, lots of climbing; the descent after Grays Point seemed to take forever to come--and now I see we were on a ridge for about 6 miles, which explains it. |
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| No HR data again, just speed and elevation here |
Sunday I got up a little earlier than I had to so I could get in another run—this time 40 minutes on the step mill (it should have been 1 hour, but I got caught on the phone just before I was heading in). Then it was off to the most eventful team ride we’ve had in quite a while. We met at Todd’s studio and headed out to Metro Center, similar to a couple weeks ago, so we could do some team work and sprint. Sadly, during our second sprint, Valerie, Catherine, and Parri all hit each other and Val and Catherine went down. Val ended up being very shaken up and not sure if she was seriously injured or not, so we called an ambulance and sent her to the hospital. Thankfully, she was not seriously injured, but she will be quite sore tomorrow I’m sure! That kind of put a damper on the rest of the plan and the ride, so we just rode at a very easy, conversational pace back to the start. They crashed about 35 minutes in, and our total ride was 1:05, average pace 13.8 mph (30.3 max, which is good considering there are no hills outside of downtown Nashville on that route (climbed 1,400 feet and descended 1,300); that means we got that fast on that or the previous sprint).
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| HR data here, and you can tell by the speed and HR where our sprints were! |
I was ahead of the crash and didn’t see it happen. All I heard was what sounded like someone’s chain breaking, as if they’d put too much torque on it. I didn’t hear anyone scream or shout until someone not involved said “Crash!” or “Someone’s down!” or something like that. I was so focused on the sprint that I didn’t realize what was going on behind me. I guess that’s a good thing for a race, but not such a good thing when it’s one of my teammates who has just gone down.
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