Mohican: my first double

While I have not registered for the Mohican 100 it's still in my mind to tackle it this year.  Last night some motivation kicked in and I planned a long mountain bike ride for this morning.  The thought was I better prove to myself I can ride a mountain bike for a longer distance without breaking.

At 6:05 this morning my alarm sounded and I set my plan into action.  Start the coffee maker, put on clothes I set out last night, grab food from fridge, pour coffee, and out the door at 6:20.  My bike and gear were already in the car.

Morning light in the parking lot at Mohican.

The plan was a loop at Mohican followed by... more.  How much more?  That was the question.  I wanted to ride two loops but was not sure if that was doable, having never ridden more than a single loop.  After eating two eggs, a banana, and finishing my coffee I hit the trail at 7:02.

I love riding in the woods in the morning.  The low angle light and damp forest have a great effect.  It was 45 degrees when I left the car with arm warmers installed.  I eased into the ride thinking this was the first of two opening climbs today.

At the first road crossing I stopped for an Espresso Love Gu.  I continued to drink regularly as I rode onward.  At the covered bridge I stopped for some almond and cranberry trail mix I had packed along and it was then time to climb.  I rode steady up Mount Doom and soon reached trailhead 2 where it was time to lose the arm warmers.   In about 2:50 I finished the first loop feeling a bit fresher than usual.  Conserving where needed, attention to food and drink, and back stretching seemed to work well.

Throughout the ride I snapped quick pics for time

markers, none of them particularly interesting.

At this point I knew I was headed out for some more.  Back to the car for a Cliff bar and refill of my hydration pack.  And here was a mistake, I only had water for the refill and not enough to fill my hydration pack.  I drank 70oz of diluted Gatoraide on the first lap.  I'm guessing I only had 40oz on my back as I started the second lap.

A met a couple other guys who were out riding laps in prep for the 100 miler.  Chris and I started our second laps about the same time.  While I was hoping to ride at least through Mount Doom, Christ was planning to ride "3 or 4" laps today.  That's tough.

The second lap was off to a good start.  I stopped again at the first road crossing for another Gu and seemed to be slowing in pace.  Chris caught up to me shortly after this and gave me some good hollerin' to keep working.  It helped as I picked up the speed until the covered bridge where I realized I was about out of water.  Uh-oh.

I hung back on the climb wondering how this would play out.  The temperature had risen, a good climb was coming, and I had no water.  I decided to ride very conservatively up the climb and either bail out at the next road crossing or hope to find someone else with water to spare.

At the first road crossing I was doing okay, though the temperature was noticeably warmer.  I continued on and reached the second trailhead.  Fortunately I found water and decided at this point to continue on, at least to the road crossing at mile 19.  I ate a hanful of dried apricots and clipped in.

By mile 19 I was feeling rough.  My legs were starting to cramp, probably from the prior dry stretch.  I made the choice to ride it out and complete the lap even if pedaling in low gear, and this I did frequently.

 My legs were far from fresh the last five miles,

but thankfully not this far gone.

Back to car I was a little ragged but not broken.  The car indicated 86 degrees outside, that's 41 degrees warmer than it was 6 hours and 15 minutes ago when I first left the car.  Full blast A/C, a chocolate shake, and foot long sub cooled me off and put me on a good path to recovery.  I came home and ran through the sprinkler with Daniel.  Well, he did the running and I just stood in front of it.

I was pretty satisfied with the effort.  Of course I wish I would have planned better with fluids on the second lap.  It was a good learning experience and memorable first 50 mile mountain bike ride.  I'm curious to see how the next couple weeks go.