Seven Hills of Kirkland: The hardest metric century ever!

This morning, I went out with a group of women triathletes from the Pro Club to ride the "Seven Hills of Kirkland" metric century. WOW. What a ride. Who knew there were mountains right in this area?

So basically, the seven hills form a 39-mile route; the metric century has by their count 11, and by my count 12 big climbs - in 59 miles (so not quite a full metric century, but whatever). The ride was seriously the hardest ride I've ever done - harder than the Daffodil Century, way harder than the Flying Wheels Century. In fact, I think if I had ridden Flying Wheels at my pace the entire time (rather than the group's slower pace), I could have finished the 100 miles of Flying Wheels in about the same time it would have taken me to finish the Seven Hills metric century ride.

I say would have because my bike is being mean to me. Somewhere around mile 46 or so, it decided to start ghost-shifting again - and while I could tolerate it a few weeks ago when I knew the route well, with all these hills, I needed all my gears and I needed to know that it wasn't going to shift on me in the middle of a climb or descent. So we cut out the last two hills (on the cue sheet - in my opinion, there was one more significant climb at the end that wasn't marked on the cue sheet) and ended around 55 miles.

So let's see, ride details: I felt great on almost all of the climbs. A couple of them I did in my big ring just to see if I could (even though I was in the big ring in the back, too - which means I should have been on the small ring in the front and a middle one in the back, but I've never bothered to learn the ratios anyway). Matthew argued with me that you should never ride in the big in front and back, and I disagreed because I feel like in a race, if I know I'm going to crest a hill and start a major descent, I want to be in my big ring already towards the top of the hill so while I'm giving it that last hard push to the top, I can already be shifting the back to make it harder so when I start the descent, I'm ready. That was the longest sentence I ever wrote, and I'm not editing it so it's no longer a run-on. :-)

A couple of the hills did make me wish they were over - particularly Novelty Hill in Redmond, which just goes on and on and on and the shoulder is full of gravel and glass and cars go by in their lane at like 50 mph. Apparently it's a three-mile climb, with a couple little flat parts but then going up again. Wow. But I stayed strong until the end, although I did need more food. I brought with me a PowerBar, two GUs, and two packets of Sport Beans (yum!). Matthew forgot to bring food (I've since forbidden him to ride with me without food, because we just ride too far and too long not to eat), so I gave him one of the packages of Sport Beans and that didn't really leave me with enough calories. Actually, I can't blame Matthew - I didn't bring enough calories to begin with. If I'd eaten everything I had, I would have eaten 620 calories - and I burned 2400. Not okay. I thought there were more PowerBars in my saddle bag, but I guess I had removed them.

So: gotta bring more food. I think I want to try some kind of carb/protein drink in my water bottles; I don't think I can eat enough to sustain myself well on that kind of ride. Other than that, I was happy with my performance. My average speed over the 55 miles was 13.6, but I also held myself back on some of the steeper descents to stay with the group and because I hadn't ridden those hills before, so just in case something unexpected were to happen. I also had times when the group wasn't pushing (like for a few miles on the Burke-Gilman trail), where we could have. So I guess I could have had a higher average speed, but I'm frankly not unhappy with a 13.6 on this route. Not at all.

Other hills of note: The winery hill was steep, and longer than I thought it would be. At one point, I was going something like 4.9 mph and I saw the hill continue up for a while, so I decided to give myself a little break by turning left off the course onto a flat road, pedaling around for a minute to catch my breath, then started back up. I don't think anyone else I was riding with even noticed - Matthew was ahead of me at this point, everyone else was behind, so I don't think anyone saw me do it and I caught right back up to Matthew. This was interesting, because even though I added distance that little break gave me a tiny bit more energy so it made my push to the top stronger. That might be a good strategy for a race; however, I don't really think there's any place like that on the Lake Stevens half-Ironman.

When the ride was over, I was HUNGRY. I ate enchiladas for lunch and a hamburger and fries for dinner (actually, half my burger and half my fries, but that probably doesn't count anyway because half of a Red Robin hamburger is still a lot of calories). But I'm feeling okay about my eating today - we went to the beach to play in the afternoon and I didn't eat candy, soda, or ice cream there.

Anyway, after this ride, I feel completely ready for both STP and the half-Ironman. Danielle raced Pacific Crest half-Iron today; the results aren't out yet, but I hope she kicked ass! I was a little bit sorry this morning to wake up and know she was racing and I wasn't. I don't think I made the wrong decision to stay home with the family this weekend, but I'm so ready for my half-Iron race and I just can't wait, so it might have been fun to do it this weekend!

Oh, one year from now: Ironman Coeur d'Alene. I've got a year to train. No sweat. :-)

(What a dumb statement! Lots of sweat! Yeah!)