Just Call Me Sisyphus

Only 6 months until RAAM (5 months to train and 1 month to taper.) Training is going well; I am right on schedule and feeling strong. Although winter has not even started, June 10th is just around the corner.

I officially started training for RAAM 07 on October 15 th. Below is a chart showing my mileage for each of the past 7 weeks. (This pic is a little hard to read so here are the numbers: week 1- 205.7, week 2-234.8, week 3-260.9, week 4-191.5, week 5-278.3, week 6-300.3, week 7-317.9) Total for the 7 weeks: 1,789.4 miles.

Looking at this chart, I can’t help but think of Sisyphus, the character in Greek mythology who was forced to endlessly roll a huge bolder up a hill, only to reach the top and have it roll back to the bottom. I work through each training period, increasing my hours from the previous week until I can cut back and recover in the 4th week, only to have it start all over.

At least Sisyphus didn’t have to roll the bolder up a hill in the pouring rain. This past Friday I had a 9 hour ride on my training schedule and a 5 hour ride for Saturday. When I went to bed Thursday night, they were predicting showers all day Friday, so I decided to flip my Friday and Saturday rides. Five hours in the rain sounded like less misery than 9 hours in the rain.

When I got out of bed on Friday I was surprised to see that it wasn’t raining. I pulled up the radar map on my computer, and it looked like I might just be able to get in my long ride without drowning. The storm was passing north and south of the Concord area, and it looked like if I headed south/southwest I could avoid much of the rain. Besides it was going to be in the 60s!!! Doesn’t this radar map make you want to ride your bike for 9 hours?

I headed south, to Dunbarton, over Mills Hill and into Goffstown (via Gorham Pond Rd.) My plan was to take route 13 over to New Boston, but I must have missed a turn, and I ended up on 114 in Bedford. The nice thing about being on a 9 hour ride, when you’re only a couple of hours into the ride and you’re lost, you don’t need to panic, you have plenty of time to adapt. Besides, I wasn’t lost, I just wasn’t where I had planned to be.

I didn’t have a map of the area with me, but I roughly knew where I was, so I just kept going. As I heading south on 114, I spotted New Boston Rd; Figuring it would take me to New Boston (made sense to me) I took it. It was a nice road with some really nice climbing and it did go into New Boston, but then it wound south into Antrim and dumped me out on 101, probably the busiest road in the state. Now I decided my best bet would be to ride to Milford and take 13 north up through Mont Vernon to New Boston, then head west to Bennington and Antrim. This is a really nice area for cycling, lots of rolling hills and old New England towns.

After about 6 ½ hours of riding, I had worked my way back up to Henniker. I still had 2 ½ hours to ride, so I decided to head up to Bradford, through Sutton, to New London and then Finally east and home. This is just about the time that my pleasant 60 degree ride, started to get ugly.

On the way to Bradford, it started to rain. No big deal, I put on my rain jacket and kept on keeping on. I have ridden in the rain plenty of times. Then the rain turned into a down pour. No big deal, I pride myself on being tough and little rain wasn’t going to stop me. Then it happened, my chain broke. There I was, standing in a puddle by the side of the road, with rain running down my neck, trying to fix my chain.

I got my chain back together and continued on my way just as the sun was disappearing. As the sun went down so did the temperature. The mild 60 degree day turned into a chilly, soggy evening in the mid 40s. To add icing to the cake, my light wouldn’t work. Every time I hit a bump it would turn off, and thanks to the NH DOT that was about every 10th of second. Cold, wet, and blind I finished the ride at 8 hours and 55 minutes. I know I was 5 minutes short but I just didn’t care. My average speed, which had stayed around 17 mph during most of the day, plummeted to just over 16 mph. Another 147 miles in the bank.

To date we have raised $3,555.00 for Special Olympics.

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