ColaJacket

I understand. When I went to DisneyWorld, they said that Space Mountain was the 2nd tallest mountain in Florida. You go, "Ok". Then you think, and wonder where the tallest one is. (I'm guessing near either the AL or GA border.)

I see 2 point of interest:

Sugarloaf Mountain - Sugarloaf Mountain is the fifth highest named point in the state of Florida. At 312 feet (95 meters) above sea level it is also the highest point on the geographic Florida Peninsula.

Britton Hill - the highest natural point in the state of Florida, USA, with a summit elevation of 345 feet (105 meters) above mean sea level.

GH

Podagrower

Yesterday was century ride number 2. 7 team members and 3 coaches teamed up to represent at a charity ride. There was about twice as much elevation gain as our first century, and more wind than anybody wanted. I wasn't comfortable on the bike after mile 10, which sucks, and I knew it wasn't going to be my day, but I didn't realize how bad it was until I looked at my heart rate while I was pulling; 105% of max while pulling at 17MPH (I usually run 95% at 18MPH). That's obviously not sustainable and I pulled off the front. I couldn't keep my heart rate down; 95% in the draft was pretty common (I'm usually around 90%). I pushed and pushed until about mile 90 when I was done, I dragged my sorry a$$ across the finish line with a 16MPH average. As a lifelong asthmatic, I'm used to the effects of an asthma attack, and I'm used to exercise induced asthma, but somehow I missed the signs during the ride. Once I stopped riding, I could feel very mild wheezing, which isn't unusual for me, so it took most of the rest of the day for me to figure out that I had worked myself into a state of exercise induced asthma, which was the cause of my heart rate issues. I've never had exercise induced asthma when the temperature is over 75, and yesterday was the coolest it's been (jersey zipped all the way, kind of wishing for my arm warmers), which is a subtle reminder that I still need to be mindful of what I'm doing.

kc0bbq

Unless you mean LTHR I think your Max HR estimate is too low - by definition you can't go past 100%. In reality, though, as long as you aren't trying to target training zones specifically, knowing what happens at what heart rates is enough.

Congratulations on the century, it sounds like you dug deep for this one. If you ever want to see how hard you really worked try to recreate some of the effort while on a trainer without the distractions of other riders and scenery...

I had some EIA issues this spring, which was new to me. I had asthma as a child, but mostly outgrew it. The Canadian wildfires put us under a blanket of smoke for a month and it never got as far as wheezing, just irritation, but it was enough to cause problems climbing. And since I wanted another SCUBA cert and needed a new medical sign-off, extra doctor's visits because it has no longer been in remission for 20+ years. :/ The pulmonary specialist I got referred to turned out to be a diver, too, so that means even more scrutiny.

Podagrower

Another weekend, more hills. We traveled to ride a 45 mile route we had ridden in July, a progress check for the upcoming Horse Farm 100. 3 months make a big difference in abilities, we were only about .5MPH faster over the ride, but after 30 miles, we were all amazed that it felt like we had only just started riding. It was a great validation of our work and a great motivator for the upcoming ride. This 45 mile section covers 1,700' of the 2,200' total climbing for the century route.

Podagrower

Century number 3 complete. Too fast at the start, failed to eat or drink enough, group broke up with 5 miles to go; in other words, pretty much the norm. It's definitely a good gauge of our readiness for the Horrible. I have no doubt (and haven't for a while) that we will finish the Horrible, but it's going to be a long day. I'm setting a mental average of 13.5 moving, which is going to translate to pretty close to a 10 hour century.

Podagrower

November short goal is to ride every day. To that end, I've been working on equipping the Jamis as a commuter. I already had a rack and panniers, I've figured out a plan that I think will work and give me about 30 miles per day of commuting. Made a test ride yesterday to check things over, it's been about 6 months since I rode the Jamis, and it's funny how impressions change. With about 10 pounds of rack and gear on the back, the Jamis really rides nice, it has fender and rack braze ons front and rear, but I didn't think it was really made for loading, apparently I was wrong. I've noticed that I'm starting to be able to pick out subtle differences that I never noticed before, when I put new tires on the Giant, I was surprised that I could feel the difference in handling (even though the tires were the same model) until the tires were a little scuffed, riding the Jamis yesterday, I could really feel the extra weight and wheelbase length when it came to cornering (the Jamis wants to sit up and turn where the Giant is happy to lean over at an angle). Riding a 30+ pound bike for a couple of weeks will probably make the Giant feel like a feather for the HH.

Podagrower

Went for a short ride last night to prevent Sunday from being an absolute suck fest. I tried to unclip my left foot and failed, fortunately had enough time to get my right foot unclipped. It's not real easy to release your foot from a shoe that's still clipped in. Then there's the walk of shame in 1 bike shoe and 1 sock. Turns out a cleat screw had backed out on my new shoes (totally my fault); and I then managed to break off most of the metal around the tension adjustment screw trying to get the shoe and cleat off the pedal. So I will be riding the most difficult century to date with new pedals and cleats...I'm not nervous at all. This is why we do shakedown rides, right?

Indyspeeddmon

Best of luck in your ride and fwiw, I have very much enjoyed this thread. Nice to see your training progress and motivates me to get out and ride, although I do wish we had your weather up here in Indiana...this mornings temp was 38 degrees.

Indyspeeddmon

I do hope your HH went/is going well today! I'm looking forward to reading the recap of your experience.

Podagrower

The 2015 Horrible Hundred is complete. The tag line for the ride is "It's only Horrible if you miss it", to which I added late yesterday "or if you actually show up and ride". I had mentally prepared for a 10 hour century with a 13.5 avg speed. Avg speed wound up at 12.9, and just under 10 hours total ride time. The ridewithgps file has 4,309 feet of climbing and my Garmin (which is always higher than ridewithgps) has 5,679 feet. It was a hard ride, I don't know if I'll ever do it again. Yesterday was cool and dry (low humidity), with a lot of 10+ MPH wind. We rode straight into that headwind for 17 miles between SAG stops, but it was a tailwind for the last 10 miles of the ride. Somewhere around 2,300 riders of all sorts, I saw a few tandems (one was a father/son combo, with the kid being about 10 years old-they had an 11-42 cassette I was a little envious of), a handcycle, and an eliptigo.

There were 11 of us riding "together" (becomes a relative term in the hills), 4 were coaches from our Couch2Century team, the other 7 were team members who wanted to represent the team at the main ride for the club who sponsored us and made all of our work possible. One coach split off at the 70 mile mark, but 10 of us finished the 100 mile route. I had some issues during the ride, maybe should have SAGed in, but I'm a bit stubborn. Cool and dry is great for cycling, but cycling in the cool and dry is the perfect trigger for my exercise induced asthma. Before our first cool ride this year, I was optimistic that all the riding I had done would have me in good enough shape to avoid the asthma issues, but I was wrong then, and yesterday was bad. By mile 40, I could feel the irritation that is the warning-it's like the dry air dries out and irritates my bronchial tubes, which my body interprets to mean the invasion is coming so we'd better close off those airways. I had prepared, I had my rescue inhaler, but it wasn't enough. My legs were right on the verge of cramping, which puzzled me as they are in good enough shape for this ride, and the way they feel this morning makes me suspect they were starved for oxygen, not fuel. At mile 59, I told my ride buddy I was in trouble, I had to back off, way off. I couldn't hang with them on the flats or uphill anymore. Mile 78 was Sugarloaf Mountain, longest steep climb of the route, I stopped 5 times and just barely beat somebody walking up, but I was determined to ride the whole route by then. Down the backside of Sugarloaf is always fun (unless you get cut off by another bike like I did yesterday), but it lead to a long stretch of very shallow uphill, which was not what I needed. I was riding at about 4MPH, the last one in our group, doing everything I could to keep my breathing down, and then there was another big hill-I walked it, at that point there was no chance of getting up it. That brought me to the last SAG stop at mile 88, staffed by C2C team members and staff, I stopped long enough to fill 2 bottles and grab a PBJ before continuing and eating while I rode, my ride buddy tried getting in front and pulling, but with her 11-28 cassette and my 11-36 I knew she would die at my speed so I told her to go. I did good thru the next stretch of rollers, and made decent time on the next flat section with the notable exception of starting to cough and not being able to breath so bad I thought I was going to pass out on the bike, I decided to stay on the bike because I thought it would look better if I was still clipped in when they found me. Finally got to the last downhill, a semi residential street with a bike lane, speed limit 35, I topped out at 42 without pedaling or tucking. Then there was one more hill, I didn't even try, just got off at the bottom and walked it like a boss. I limped in pretty late, but not last, found a reasonably soft spot in the grass and fell out.

Indyspeeddmon

Sorry to hear that it was a struggle. Even with the problems you fought through and finished the century, which is more than many (myself included) can claim to have done. Congratulations!!

Flying Foot Doc

" what makes this "horrible"?".. It's only horrible if you miss it.. Did my second HH, nothing like you guys, did 40 miles and was thinking I really couldn't take that many more hours at it. Rode all the hills except 1 walk on the 2nd roller of Bushkill. Great organization and expo and food. Congrats to the other 2200 riders in it and to the Florida Freewheels for putting on their 36th HH. Yes I hated parts of it while I was doing it & yes I'll be older and back at it next year, but with lower gearing!