2012 MS Ride - It Will Rain

October 21, 2012. A day that will live in... no I can't go there. I hadn't done as much prep for this ride as I wanted to. As you can see from my previous rides, I didn't get the climb training in like I should have. This ride, I knew, was going to be a really hard one. Start in Manhattan, go up through the Palisades, play in the hilly terrain of Rockland County for a while, and then head back to the city. Cake ride, right? NOT!

2012 Bike MS Map

Yes, the shaded parts are 8 rated hills. For those of you who don't ride much, these are hills that can be considered "professional grades". In other words, ones you'd find on rides like the Tour De France. The lower the number, the higher the grade. Generally when I ride, I may encounter 1 cat 5 hill. But never this much. So it was easy to psych myself out.

I've been on a diet recently to drop some unwanted weight I gained with all my shoulder problems for the last couple of years. But I knew I had to leave that behind and start carb loading for the ride. I had been slowly introducing the carbs throughout the week (quinoa, whole wheat wraps, etc.). On Friday night I had a nice pasta meal and then Saturday I was going to have about 2500 calories (my usual intake is about 1500-1600 on a diet). By 6pm I realized I hadn't had much at all that day so I was getting nervous. But that night we had a birthday party to go to and I went to town on some lasagna, meatballs, a few cookies, some garlic bread... hmmm now I'm hungry again. Let me get some dinner.

...

The next morning I woke at 4:30 and was out the door on the train and arrived onsite at 6:30. I was riding for my company team and they had a nice shirt waiting for me so I put it on and one serious biker on the team wanted to ride as a group. I told him I'd do it so long as I could stay with them. We inched close to the starting line and saw the police escort which was to take us through the first part of the century ride.

2012 MS Ride Starting Line

The police also provided a nice rendition of the Star Spangled Banner before we took off.

National Anthem

Once we were ready it was packed in pretty tightly. They gave us the "Go!" and we started down the West Side Highway. Immediately, I lost the group I was going to ride with. I was going about 19mph and they were flying. I didn't need to burn out on the first leg. I was one of the first 100 or so of the total 5000 bikers to reach the Holland Tunnel. This was a first for the MS Ride apparently. Unfortunately, they didn't think about the grates at the beginning of the tunnel because a number of bikers either blew out their tires or at the very least had flats. By the time I got there, one of the marshalls had already dismounted and warned people of the hazard. I caught the tip of the first grate but my tires were rock solid. Then I was able to navigate my way over a seam on the second one so I was ok. I passed a bunch of people in the tunnel already changing their tires.

I will say though that riding through the Holland Tunnel traffic free was really cool!

The Holland Tunnel

We got to the other side and then made our way along the Hudson on River Road. We then got to Palisades Park for the first major climb.

Palisades Park

Putting the climb aside, Palisades Park was one of the most incredible experiences I've ever had on a bike. The date was October 21st, right at the height of the fall foliage season. It was magnificent. The above picture does not do it justice because I was on my bike when I took the picture ("blind" click every once in a while"). I didn't want to pull over to the side because then I'd have to start the climb from a standstill which was not going to be easy. If I looked to the left, there was a cliff that rose high above and was covered with oranges, reds, browns and greens. To my right, there was another cliff (going down) with much of the same and the Hudson River at the bottom. Off in the distance was the skyline of northern Manhattan. It was breathtaking. Or maybe that was the climb, because it was VERY steep at times. We got a few downhills, but it was primarily a 3 mile climb through the park and at the top I took a breather in front of one of the park buildings.

Northern Palisade Park HQ

It was also during the climb in the park that the song came to me. No it was NOT a good biking song: Bruno Mars's It Will Rain.

My wife is a big fan of this song and I imagine it was on the radio in the last couple of days. I said to the kids on Saturday morning that they weren't allowed to sing around me because the last thing I wanted was Lady Gaga for 100 miles rolling around in my head. But there's so much exposure to music, it's hard to avoid it. This song is played on the radio incessantly and despite the fact that I listen to ESPN, FAN and NPR most of the time, my kids don't want any of that. So we put on the radio or the iPod and whatever gets played I'm exposed to.

It Will Rain is one of Mars's more whiny songs. I'm not a big fan of the beat track in the background. Give me Neil Peart or Mike Portnoy or even Phil Collins any day. And he repeats the same note progression throughout the entire chorus which has the effect of just searing itself into my brain. It isn't until he gets to the "Ra-a-a-a-a-ain" at the end of the chorus where you get some type of resolution. This is not a bike friendly song. It's slow, it's monotonous and repetitive. What was funny was as soon as I got out of the first rest stop which was not that far along from the top of Palisades Park, I had temporarily the Gym Class Heroes and Adam Levine song Stereo Hearts in my head because they were blasting it at the stop. But Bruno came in like a... well... Bruno and pushed it out within a mile or two and I was stuck with this one. Grrr....

I should also say at this point that leading up to this ride, I was looking at it as just that - a ride. I knew it was a benefit and to be completely honest with you, I thought of that as secondary. But leading up to the first rest stop there were some signs on the road that told the story of Lisa who was battling with Multiple Sclerosis. It hit upon all of my own insecurities about what would happen if I got diagnosed with something like this. I do have a close relative who has a mile case of MS, but even with that, it wasn't real. When I got to the rest stop, I saw a woman who was signing orange bandanas. It was Lisa herself. I walked up to her and really had no idea what to say. "I'm sorry you have to go through this" just wasn't going to cut it. So I just walked up and smiled. She handed me a bandana and said, "Thank you for riding, it means so much to me." I got it. I knew why we were doing this. This was such an enormous thing for those who suffer from this illness as we raided over $2 million with this ride. I took the bandana that Lisa gave me and wrapped it around my head (I never wear bandanas by the way). For the rest of the ride, Lisa and her story and the story of all the others that she represented rode with me and honestly gave me strength during the more difficult moments of the ride.

Me with Lisa's bandana

I came out of the first rest stop and continued the climb through the Palisades. Again, I wasn't able to take many pictures due to the terrain, but I did get one nice foliage shot here.

And another coming across a bridge.

There were of course many ups and downs. At one point in the ride I broke my personal record and hit 45.2 mph. During some of the climbs I dipped below 4 mph. I tried every trick in the book on climbs. Breathing exercises, standing climbs, sitting climbs, anything I could think of. It was just tough. One thing that was interesting was that I had been on 3 centuries before this and all of them spaced out their rest stops about 20-30 miles apart. This one had them about 10 miles apart. I was poo-pooing the distraction, but after some of those climbs I thought it better to just stop at each rest stop for 5-10 minutes rather than take longer ones every 25 miles. It definitely helped.

Congers rest stop

Another funny thing about this ride was the guy who organized the group ride at the beginning. Remember they just took off? Well he couldn't stay with that group either. He hooked up with a few others, but had trouble sticking with them too. So invariably with each rest stop, I came in and there he was. It was a joke but I saw him at every single rest stop. I would come in after him and then leave before him. He'd pass me on one of the climbs and by the time I got to the next stop, he was there.



I must have done something right in my diet leading up to the ride and hydration throughout because I didn't really cramp until about 75 miles in, despite all the climbing. Then it hit hard. I rested at the side of the road for about 8 minutes and then went pain free for the rest of the ride.

The category 4 hill came at around mile 81 and that was brutal. I was going about 3.8 mph and just needed to get through the climb and there was a rest stop at the top off 9W. I rolled into the rest stop and happened to run into a former co-worker there. And my co-worker told me the rest of the ride was a cake-walk from there. Good to hear because I was running on fumes.

The last rest stop was getting ready for the Halloween season

They weren't too far off, a couple of mini-climbs approaching the George Washington bridge, but for the most part it was relatively flat.

George Washington Bridge

We cleared the bridge and it was just the rolling hills of Riverside drive on down to the finish where I was welcomed by a man with a microphone and a hearty congratulations and medal for finishing the century.

I finished!

This was truly an incredible experience. More climb than I have ever done in a single ride and I can honestly say I learned something about myself. It's more than the ride. I was touched by the knowledge that what I was doing, and what those who helped me raise money for this event, was going to help find a cure to this illness.

WHY WE RIDE

Vitals:

Distance:	100.82 mi
Time:	7:21:16
Avg Speed:	13.7 mph
Elevation Gain:	5,253 ft
Calories:	7,884 C