Well, I'm back, I finished, I'm done. Sorry I could not keep the blog up to date but my computer broke down and there was no way to communicate except by cell phone. If you go out to the PAC Tour web page you will find plenty of photos and blogs the other riders kept that far surpassed anything I could do with the equipment I had.
To sum it succinctly, all I can say it was hard as hell. Probably the hardest thing I've ever done. I think it was the combination of lack of training, altitude, persistent headwinds and just shear distance of the trip made it so hard. The first day my lips cracked and bled so bad I could hardly eat, despite putting on massive amounts of chap stick, sun block and neosporin to get through the day. The bottom of my left foot is still numb from pressing down on a pedal. I had a persistent pain between the shoulder blades everyday which came on after about 20 miles and which took taking 3 Ibuprofen at every rest stop to keep it at bay. The massages Jon gave helped, but were of temporary relief. I tried lowering the saddle and that helped too, but I could never eliminate it all together. I managed to complete all the miles except for 40 on the longest and toughest day, from Evanston to Vernal, UT. I think that day several people took SAGS and I could tell from the start I was not going to go all the way as I could only push about 14-15 on the flats into a pretty stiff breeze - but I had 152 miles and over 8,000 feet of climbing to go!
All but 7 of us were PAC tour veterans so the group was very experienced and very strong. There were about 6 guys who were very fast, looked liked they just left the Tour de France and always came in far ahead of everyone else. Lean and mean, 2-3% body fat type. They could push all day at 25 mph, headwinds or no, up and down mountains, didn't matter. Several in the group just got better and better as the trip progressed. A couple of guys had done RAAM and one of the women was the 2005 RAAM winner. I managed to finish in the first half just about everyday but often it took everything I had and all the tricks I could employ to hang on to a paceline or get in before the usual afternoon thunderstorm hit. I did not lose any weight, despite the fact I didn't eat anymore than I do at home. Body fat percentage did decline, according to the scale I have, from about 14% to 7%. Quite often I rode solo, as I couldn't keep up with the bunch ahead of me and I didn't want to go as slow as the folks behind me. I was in no man's land, not a good place to be with strong headwinds. My thanks to Rich "The Rock" Ruge for giving me a wheel to suck from time to time. Average age for the riders was 50 years old, the median about 51, not including the staff. There was only one bad crash, Diane was hit by a car just leaving the parking lot at the start of the Grand Junction to Montrose day. She suffered a cracked vertebra and had to have surgery in Grand Junction. Jerry Sorensen had some scrapes from falling after his handle bar broke from hitting a railroad track but was able to get back on and ride. One other guy I know of was not able to finish, Dan Kelliher from Alaska had a severely swollen knee after the first few days and also Andrew, our Aussie, had a family emergency that cut his trip short.
Beautiful scenery greeted us almost everyday, however rolling through some of those towns like Espanola, Truth or Consequences NM and places like that made Madison look pretty good. To tell the truth, I was working too hard a lot of the time to enjoy the scenery. Most of the time the roads really sucked as far as bicycling goes. Rough, gravel strewn shoulders on busy highways made for a good bit of the trip. We often had nothing but a narrow shoulder while numerous RV's would squeeze by us, cutting you no slack whatsoever. I can remember a few nice sections, like the day we rode to Jackson through a recreation area and I spotted a black bear cub cross the road in front of me. The last couple of days were nice too, riding through pecan groves in New Mexico. Please keep in mind this is by no means a reflection on PAC Tour, it's just a fact of life if you are trying to ride from hotel to hotel out west. There just aren't that many roads to choose from.
The hotels we stayed were generally pretty good, but I strongly recommend that if you sign up for a trip like this spend the money to get your own room as it really helps when you can spread out and relax.
The meals PAC Tour served were excellent. We had a lot of variety of food like burgers, grilled chicken strips, hot dogs, chicken salad and my favorite, grilled cheese sandwiches at the lunch stops.
We really lucked out as far as weather goes, except for persistent nagging southwest winds. It starts out cool in the morning, enough to wear gloves and perhaps arm warmers but would quickly warm up, but if you stayed out there long enough you might get caught in a strong thunderstorm. At the high mountain passes I would get cold but I wouldn't be up there long enough to do harm. Only one time did I get rained on, although I did have to ride on wet pavement several times.
So did I have fun you ask me? No, sorry, I can't say that I did. It was just too darn hard for me. I knew going in it would be hard but I was surprised that everyday would be a gut check. I can remember only a handful of times when we didn't have a headwind, and that was coming out of Missoula, into Anaconda and the last day, the last 6 miles only, coming into El Paso. Take note, if you want to do this ride, wait for when they ride it south to north, it's got to be a lot easier.
To be realistic, preparing for something like this is quite difficult. By mid May the heat here precludes those 200 or 150 mile training rides they recommend, well, for me at least. As far as getting used to the 5,000 ft and up altitude, I don't think there's an answer for that, except to go out there and train, and if you're going to do that, why sign up anyway? Ruth, one of the slim and fast women, might have a better answer and that is to get out there and jam with the racers. That's what she told me she did, practice crits twice a week, and a longer ride on the weekend, and she did o.k. Her longest ride was only 100 miles or so going in. She's 48. I think in the coulda woulda shoulda department I would have put in more consecutive long rides, perhaps three century rides in a row in preparation instead of my once a week 100-120 mile rides followed by a 60-80 miler. I think I could have done that even in Alabama heat prior to the ride.
If I do another one it will be the Wisconsin camp, so I can have some time to goof off and enjoy!
