April Training

I trained for the Tour Divide through April logging ~700 miles and ~50,000 feet of elevation gain.  Most rides were gravel grinders in the Boulder/Longmont area.  I feel that I’m a strong climber but struggle far more on longer days without large climbs/descents.

One of the harder rides was a loop from Boulder to Nederland via Flagstaff/Gross Res/Magnolia, then north on the P2P and back via Gold Hill and Sunshine.  I carried 4.5L water and enough food for the entire day to simulate the TD more closely.

The month was capped with two back-to-back 75 mile rides – one with 6,600ft of elevation, the other with 2,900 ft of elevation.  The first ride caused a lot of chafing, but I wasn’t smart enough to apply chamois cream.  I really paid for that oversight the next day, which was a flatter “sit in the saddle and spin” kind of day.  For the high ft/mile of the first day and soreness + butt pain the second day, I think the ride times and average speeds were pretty respectable: 11.4mph and 12.8mph moving average (9.9mph and 10.4mph overall average).

May Training

Things fell apart in May.  Today is May 29th, and so far I’ve ridden 117 miles over 5 rides…  I just lost motivation to train.

Change of Plans

Once again I’m not ready to race the Tour Divide.

In May I went through some personal things that were mentally and emotionally draining.  I couldn’t bring myself to get on the bike.  The longer I went without riding, the more guilty I felt, and the more I was worried about losing my fitness.  I didn’t want to ride, because I’d see how far I had slipped in terms of fitness.  It became a feedback loop.

In April I finalized my transportation to Antelope Wells.  Balancing my girlfriend’s and parent’s schedule, I’m able to be dropped off at Antelope Wells on the morning of June 7 (the day before the Grand Depart).  If I were heading southbound from Banff with the Grand Depart, I think the mid-pack camaraderie of “being in it together” would help forward progress and make the race worthwhile.  Riding northbound, and leaving a day before everyone else made it feel not like a race.  Since there are far fewer NoBo racers, I’d likely ride alone – maybe the entire way.  Would I be able to push myself to the limit for 3+ weeks on my own?  Do I want to?

I can imagine arriving at a great camping spot in the late afternoon.  The racer pushes on.  The tour-er can camp and cook a meal.  What about when I arrive in cool towns like Del Norte, Salida, and Frisco?  The racer stops at subway and a gas station or grocery store for resupply and continues riding ASAP.  The tour-er can visit a brewery, enjoy a sit-down meal, and (gasp) even take a rest day.  The racer values forward progress at the expense of almost everything else.  They’re out there to test their physical and mental limits.

That’s not to say that racing is bad – maybe it’s not for me right now.  I respect the dedication and willpower that racing the TD takes (and any other bikepacking race).  I think I cling to the idea of racing the TD because I want to be seen as someone with the willpower to do hard things.  But at the same time I don’t want to sacrifice so much on the “fun” side of it.

So WTF Dave?  I went through this exact same thing 3 years ago.  I decided then that there wasn’t enough balance between pushing myself and enjoyment.  Earlier this year I thought that I was okay with it, but not so much anymore.

If my hesitation to racing the TD is the rigidity of forward motion at all costs, I shouldn’t race.  A week into the race, I might pass through Salida and absolutely hate that I have to be in and out in 1-2 hours.  That’s a recipe for quitting the race.

Why couldn’t I decide to tour all or part of the route?  Is it ego – being a “racer” or being able to say I’m riding all the way to the opposite border?  Maybe I originally wanted to race the TD because being away from work for 4 weeks is easier than 6-8.  Sacrificing a month of billable work is less impactful than two – on top of there being far less travel/lodging/food expenses.

What Now?

I’m still starting in Antelope Wells on June 7, but my plan is to ride ~1,000 miles of the GDMBR to the Silverthorne/Kremmling area, then ride east through Winter Park, over Rollins Pass, through Nederland, then back down to Boulder over 14 or so days.

My new goal is to push myself on the bike every day and close to double my daily mileage compared to my 2010 tour – between 70 and 100 miles per day.  I want to push myself but still have the opportunity to take a rest day when needed, stop early in the day if I reach a nice place to camp, or grab an early hotel in town if the weather is turning for the worse.

It’s very possible that next winter I’m going to think about the Tour Divide again.  Having this trip under my belt is going to help with that.  I’ve built up the TD/GDMBR in my head for the past four years that I’m so far disconnected with the reality of it.  Doing 1,000 miles of the route will remove the uncertainty of what my capabilities are, how difficult the days actually are for 2018 Dave vs 2010 Dave, and maybe solidify future “TD or Not” decisions.

Just like in 2014, I trained for the 2015 Tour Divide but decided not to race before the Grand Depart.

For the 2014 race, I started preparing very late.  I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to get strong enough three months prior to the race.  The notion was to do what I could for training and decide in early May whether I’d race.  I wasn’t ready and so decided not to race.

In 2015, I started training earlier and smarter.  From the beginning, I rode the bike fully loaded.  I rode wearing the clothes that I’d wear on the race.  I explored new roads up in the mountains so I wouldn’t get too bored with training.  In 2014, I gave myself an opportunity to quit and took it.  This year, I decided that I would race from the very beginning.  I bought a plane ticket to Calgary.

It wasn’t until late in May that I did my first training overnighter.  Until then, I told myself that camping was my strength (it certainly was in 2010 when I toured the Great Divide)…I should focus on my physical strength and gear selection.  It turns out that was just an excuse to cover up the real reason for avoiding overnight rides.

Camping is fun.  Even more fun when bikes are involved.  Why didn’t I use “training” as an excuse to camp out more often?  That should have been the first clue that I had reservations about racing.

When I finally went on that first overnighter, I faced new training issues: I had never packed the bike to carry an overnight’s worth of food!  I had always just carried snacks for ~6 hours and stopped at home or a store for meals/resupply.  I also had to find a place for a map case to hold either cues or the ACA maps.

It was a bit of a scramble, but I got the bike and supplies situated and headed out the door.  I was riding up to a reservoir up in the mountains – 18 miles and 3700 ft of climbing away:

The first thing I noticed as I climbed out of Boulder is how much heavier the bike felt.  Should I have been training with extra weight to simulate fuller loads of food/water?  After 10 miles of climbing was the first descent.  I noticed that the map case was flapping in the wind.  The only place/orientation where it would fit caused it to flap up like an air brake when going fast enough.  Obviously TD bikes are as aerodynamic as dump trucks, but over thousands of miles I think it would wear on my mind if the thing would flap around and block wind on every descent or in headwinds.

After months of feeling strong and prepared, I was losing confidence in my setup.

As I descended the final miles to the reservoir, I had a deep feeling of joy of having transported myself into the mountains by my own power.  This is what bikepacking is all about!  The sun had just set, so I ate the subway sandwich, gathered water for the next day, and set up camp for the night.  I didn’t have a set/break camp routine with this gear, so it took a while to get ready.  I wished it was still light so I could walk around the reservoir and explore a bit.  I wished I didn’t have a five o’clock alarm set for the morning.

I turned off the alarm in the morning and kept sleeping.  I would have liked to relax a bit before riding home, but I needed to break camp and eat with some haste.  The Tour Divide isn’t the time to linger.  An hour later, I had packed, eaten, and was riding home.

The ride home was very introspective.  I enjoyed the ride and the camping, but felt like I could have enjoyed the trip more if I didn’t have to rush.  The idea of riding hours into the night and waking before dawn didn’t appeal to me.  By the time I got home my outlook at racing the Tour Divide changed from excitement to dread.  The TD isn’t the right balance of challenge and enjoyment for me.

A few days later, I pulled the plug and decided not to race in 2015.

Oddly, for the first time in many years, I followed along as the racers traversed the continental divide.  In previous years I avoided following along – it had always made me sad that I wasn’t out there racing or touring.  Maybe this year I was content with the decision.

Notes for my future self: mistakes
Small details were left unsolved until too late: food choices/capacity, efficient camp setup and breakdown.
Never figured out the ideal cockpit setup: feed bag access, map case, light orientation, map case, bear spray location.
Training focused too much on strength, rather than the above logistics.
I trained my strength, not my weakness.  I focused on climbing when I should have done more long-distance, slower, “flatter” rides.

I am not racing the Tour Divide this year.

I decided two weeks ago after a few self-test rides.  The plan was to ride at least 350 mountain bike miles over four rides – Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday.  If I could not ride at least that much mileage, I resolved to pull the plug on this year’s race.  If I managed that distance, I would at least have an informed opinion about how I’d react physically and mentally, and make a decision accordingly.

Day 1 – Cold and Windy

I set an alarm for 6am, but lacked the motivation to get out of bed that early.  Not a good start to the day.  I began pedaling after 9am.  Conditions were less than ideal for a century.  Had this not been my training week, I would have postponed it a day.  The temperatures stayed cold and a consistent 30MPH+ wind made it feel worse.

As with most long rides, the first 30 miles went by easily.  I caught myself thinking, “I’m not even tired…I can continue this all day no problem.”  Then came 30 miles of grinding.  Riding was no longer fun, the wind sucked, I was either too cold or sweating depending on the section.  I just wanted to be done with the ride.  I had to remind myself that I have 5+ hours moving time left.  Slowly, the miles ticked away.

I ate my lunch as we often did on the Great Divide – plain food while sitting on the side of a road.  It wasn’t too relaxing with the unrelenting cold wind.  Soon I was off again.  The first pedal strokes reminding me that my legs already have a lot of miles in them.  More grinding.

When the odometer showed above 75 miles, my outlook changed.  I was nearing “impressive distance” territory, so there was a mental boost.  I started thinking, “this really isn’t that bad.  Maybe I can get 125 in today!”  That phase didn’t last too long, though.  The temperature started dropping and my motivation with it.  How many more loops until 100?  How many turns until 100?  By the time the odometer flipped, it was dark and my fingers and toes were numb from cold.  I headed home, ate, and put my feet up for the night.

Day 2

Windy again today, but comfortably warm.  It was pretty much a lot more of the same.  On the plus side, my legs didn’t feel sore at all from the century two days ago.  I had high-carb lunch, macaroni and cheese, which I attribute to helping me a lot later in the day.  So much that I opted to do some extra miles to bring the day’s total to 110.  I forgot to apply sunscreen and got some serious cycling tan/burn lines – halfway up my calf from tall socks, halfway up my forearms from pulled down arm warmers, among standard sleeve/thigh lines.

Day 3

Since I realized one rest day is all I need to (relatively) easily ride a century, I decided to make today’s ride more climby.  Plus, doing loops and loops was boring and weekend trail traffic would get annoying.  I did one loop south of Boulder to give the upper elevations time to warm, then turned toward the mountains.

I chose Magnolia Rd, a beast of an ascent, as my path to higher elevations.  It is known as the steepest paved road in the county – the first mile being 14%; first two being 12%.  It averages only 9% over 4.5 miles due to two minor flat/”down” sections.  With my 34t chainring, I was in the 48t granny gear most of the climb, but the cadence I kept wasn’t uncomfortably low.  Had I ridden Mag later in the day, it would be a different story.  I don’t understand how roadies can get up this climb with their gearing.

I reached the Peak to Peak and headed south to Rollinsville, then west on dirt.  After a gradual climb over 9 miles, I reached the Moffat Tunnel.  Unfortunately, the railroad-grade 4WD road that leads over Rollins Pass was snow covered from the beginning, so it’ll be at least a few weeks before the lakes will be accessible for short overnighters.

I retraced my path backward to the P2P and stopped for food in Nederland.  From there it would be a few short climbs before a long descent back to Boulder.  I got back home just in time to avoid a strong storm cell.

300+ miles with 20,000+ vertical over three days.  Not bad, but I knew the fourth day would be the real test.  How will I recover without a full rest day?

Day 4

Based on the original plan, I only had to ride 40 miles to get to 350.  Stacking long days up front when I can fully recover seems like cheating, so I upped today’s goal to a century.

I started again on the trails south of Boulder to warm up.  Doing magnolia again was in the back of my mind, but soon ruled out after some minor steep inclines.  I knew grinding in the granny gear for an hour was unobtainable.  So I did more and more loops on dirt single and double-track.  It wasn’t fun.  My legs felt dead from the previous day.  I was hot, dehydrated, and losing motivation quickly.

After this ride I needed to make a decision about racing.  I started thinking about it.  Can I see myself finalizing TD arrangements one month from now?  Can I imagine myself not getting ready for the TD?  Will I regret it?  Which will I regret more: starting and not finishing or waiting until another year?

The middle of a difficult ride is probably not the best time to make a decision, but I started leaning more and more toward not racing.  Once I figured that out, I turned around and got home at mile 60.  I knew that by turning around and not pushing on I was almost surely deciding not to race.

Decision Time
I sat a home and wrote down some random thoughts about racing vs not.  Most were rhetorical questions that didn’t help much.  In the end I decided not to race this year.

My motivation gave out after a single difficult day.
I couldn’t manage being this sore (and certainly more) for a whole month.
Averaging 100 miles/day means sometimes riding 75, sometimes 125.  I’d have to increase my training mileage even more!
I impressed myself with being able to consistently ride MTB centuries with one day of rest in between, but I did them without gear, with a shower and comfortable bed every night, proper nutrition, and near perfect weather.  True TD conditions would increase the mental and physical demands.

Final Thoughts
I enjoy competing against myself via setting PRs on Strava segments.  Ride fast and it’ll be over soon.  My 100 milers were long, but even then there is a finish line.  I could count down from 100 to 50 to 25 to 12 and eventually reach 0 and stop.  I am in (somewhat) in control of my pace and therefore can determine how long it will take.

The TD is a different game: I need to ride 16 hours per day.   Regardless of how fast or how far, I need to ride all day every day.  Did I hit 100 miles at 4pm?  Good…now go for another 6 hours before setting up camp.

I realize it’s probably my cognitive makeup.  If 100 miles takes 16 hours, the only difference is perspective.  “Ride 100 miles per day for 27 days” is easier to stomach than “ride all day, every day for 27 days.”  The TD seems to be an exercise of the latter.  A metaphor:  I am a web developer.  I like programming applications, being able to mark them as complete, and move to the next.  These are like century rides.  The Tour Divide seems closer to writing code for 16 hours per day on a project that has no end in sight.  How can I stay motivated if the goal is so far away?

Now I realize that for me a successful TD attempt starts with motivation.  Can I break it down into daily, achievable milestones?  I decided to train for the race out of opportunity.  My job sucked, so I could quit and train for the race.  I need to have Antelope Wells or Banff as a fundamental goal and commit earlier.

Maybe none of this makes sense and is just me trying to justify my decision.  Who knows…

Earlier this year, I had the idea of attempting the Tour Divide.  The job wasn’t working out, so I decided to leave at the end of March.  The notion was to to split my time between freelance web development work and preparing for the TD.  As it were, a few friends and past co-workers were also dissatisfied with their employment situations, so we banded together to form a web development business.

So far it has worked out quite well – flexible hours and the ability for work from home have allowed me to ride as much as necessary.  The training bottleneck is motivation and boredom rather than time.

As I left my job and considered the TD, I realized two months is not a lot of time for preparation.  It was a low-mileage winter for me, so my legs needed waking up.  Of course, there are other aspects of preparation beyond physical – mental, logistic, and equipment.

Physical prep is my first priority.  Having toured the Great Divide and bikepacked half of the Colorado Trail, I’m relatively familiar with the logistic and equipment needs (and at least half-informed with the mental stress).  I set a deadline of early May to see how strong I could become – to see whether averaging 100 dirt miles per day is possible.  That deadline is a week away now and I’m still on the fence.

Am I strong enough?
The human brain can rationalize anything.  That’s where I’m at and it’s making my final decision, to race or not, very difficult.

One on hand, I completed the Great Divide in 2010 over 50-some days having trained at 500 ft., never on dirt or with any climbing, on a hybrid/commuter bike without a proper granny gear, with an exorbitant amount of equipment.  I’m much more prepared now.

On the other hand, I struggled day after day until my en-route training kicked in.  I averaged half the daily distance I want to achieve during the TD and had the luxury of a rest/half day every five or so days.  Not having rest days or long evenings to recover will deplete the body.

Then again, now I live at 5,400 ft.  My normal, for-fun rides are on mixed single and double track up to 7,000 ft. with 2,000-4,000 ft of climbing.  I have access to 3,000 ft. unrelenting climbs a few miles from my front door.  By mid-May, I’ll be able to grind gravel at 10,000+ ft.  Training in tougher road/elevation conditions than the average mile of TD must count for something, right?

Having ridden the route before (NoBo, unfortunately), I generally know what to expect.  I have a notion of what services are available in certain towns and a very good memory of turns, landmarks, and road conditions.  All of this reduce the anxiety that a rookie rider will have before leaving Atlantic City, Cuba, or Pie Town into the subsequent remote stretches.  How much is this worth if my legs aren’t conditioned properly?

Training To-Date
This month I’ve ridden 25-50 miles daily.  My biggest rides were consecutive 75-mile days with 5,500 ft vertical each, on a mix of single/double track, gravel, and a splash of asphalt.  It took 6.5 hours of riding over 8.5 elapsed hours.  The soreness from the first day didn’t affect my performance on the second day, so that was comforting.  Those days were ridden without bikepacking gear and after a full night’s sleep in a proper bed.  Not too bad considering I was dormant most winter and walked to work rather than commuting by bike.

It’s still a long shot from consecutive centuries with gear in inclement weather while sleep deprived.  Is it enough to be sure I can get that strong in the next five weeks?  I have to answer that soon.