The Rabbit's Training

I guess I'm the rabbit. In the 200 mile Nightmare Challenge I (George Metzler) will get at least a 15 minute headstart on the team. I guess I should negotiate for more time. Anyway while I'm riding the full 200 miles the four person team will be splitting up the miles into 8-15 mile turns with each rider ending up with about 50 miles of actual riding.

This past weekend, August 1-3, the rabbit got some serious training in. I participated in an organized ride with 18 other cyclists called the Endless Mountians. We rode 625 miles with 36,000+ vertical feet of climbing in three days. On day one at mile 178 we rode into Carbondale PA and I was exhausted and thought I would not be able to finish the ride...then the course got harder. Sometimes when you have completly hit the wall you lose the ability to pedal smooth circles and we call pedaling in squares. I think I was pedalling rectangles. The last ten miles to the hotel where flat to downhill but it was all I could do to keep the bike up. At one point I was getting frustrated by the cyclists that caught up to me from behind. They kept turning their lights on an off playing games with me. It wasn't until I arrived at the hotel (mile 212) that I came to realize their was now one there. I finished day one at 9:45 p.m.

Day #2

I started at 3:50 a.m. by myself. I was caught by a large group of riders at 4:45 a.m. near Binghamton NY. The ride was flat and as the morning light started to appear along with it came rain. The rain made everything much cooler and more comfortable. We were lucky to have it for about two hours. My friend Bill Blank joined us at mile 59 and rode with me from Sayre to Lock Haven. The entire time Bill was with me I had very little energy and the ride was all about survival. I think I was not eating enough so I resolved to change that. My diet today consisted of breakfast sandwiches (eggs, bacon, cheese +extra salt) and ice cream. By the end of the day I felt much better and reached the hotel in Lewisburg (mile 217) at 10:07 p.m.

Day #3

We spent a lot of time on Rt 501 and 897 today as into Blue Ball and then ran paralell to Rt 23 into Morgantown and ultimately Quakertown (our finishing and starting location) Today was much warmer and we lost the dense tree cover of North central PA. This was the easiest day for me as I finished at 7:30 p.m. (mile 192)

The official ride report and additional photos for the event is located here.

You can read a Bill Beck's ride report here