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Roz Puleo
I raced the Highland Hex, out near Syracuse. It was a 6 hour endurance
race, similar to the Foliage 400 or like a mini-24 hour race.
Even as we lined up for the start, I didn't feel great. I didn't feel bad,
but I just wasn't psyched up. As the gun went off, I jockeyed out for
positioning and got about mid-pack (only three women TOTAL in the entire
race, ...sad). I quickly learned that this course was a pure roadie course,
and the competitors were mostly roadies. There were 4 technical sections.
That was IT. And many people couldn't ride them. (I loved them, all but
one was totally rideable) This course made the Wahoo look technical. Except
that this course had long steep fireroad climbs. Those were tough, because
they never seemed to end, and the downhills on the other side were much more
gradual than the uphills, so you never really got the satisfasction of
flying downhill.
Each lap was nine miles. The only real incident I had was on my first lap.
One section was a steep rocky twisty downhill, into a stream, then up an
easy goat hill on the other side. The bottom of the stream was slate. I
flew down the downhill section, into the stream, and WHAM! My bike and I
went down HARD. From that point on I walked that section.....that was the
only difficult technical section.
I rode my first lap in 54 minutes. Good, on point to complete 6 laps. At
the tail end of the first lap, however, I started feeling sharp pain in my
back and torso area in general. I rode through it, hoping it was just a
cramp. On my second lap, I slowed down a bit to see if that would help, and
it continued to get worse. Second lap, one hour.
On my third lap was were I fell apart. I tried to walk some of the uphills
to see if I could alleviate the pain, but no luck. The pain kept getting
worse and sharper. At one point, I was dry heaving on the side of the
course. And then a little bit of vomitting occurred (but not much, just a
bit of gatorade). What the hell was wrong with me? Third lap, one hour
twelve minutes.
I decide to go out for a fourth lap without a break. Why, I dunno, I just
figured that at this point, nothing was making it better, so just deal with
it. It was on the fourth lap that I was in tears from the pain. I had
started to dread the downhills because they gostled my insides around. The
ONLY time that I felt somewhat decent was when I mashed the two short
technical sections. As soon as it was back to straight pedaling, I was in
agony. Fourth lap, one hour fifteen minutes.
I had to make a decision. Avoid a break and go for a sixth lap (and finish
around 6:50) or take a fifteen minute break and be satisfied with five laps
and finish right at the six hour mark. I took the break, and ate an almond
butter sandwich. I can't say it helped, but it certainly didn't make it
worse, and it was the first thing I had eaten since the start of the race,
so I think I made the right decision.
On my fifth lap, I just did what I could to stay on pace to finish exactly
at 6 hours. I was still in pain, but the end was in sight, and I knew that
I could just go pass out in the back of my car for awhile. Fifth lap, one
hour 10 minutes.
I finished the race in exactly six hours, with 45 miles under my belt.
Pitiful for the course conditions.......I placed second in my age group, but
there were only two of us. I was only behind by one lap, but I had smoked
this woman in my first lap, and was confident that I could have kept it up.
Oh well, I'll chalk that one up as an miserable experience....I felt WAY
worse in this race than I ever felt in the solo 24 hour races.
So I went to the doctors and I am now on a course of Cipro, because I did in
fact have an infection that I wasn't aware of. Oops......I should have
known the pain was a sign of something being up in my body....
My apologies for icky reading....hopefully my next report will be a little
more upbeat!
Roz
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