Wow, did I underestimate the difficulty of Saturday’s ride.  I really found the limits of my fitness, much more than I have in the past.  I left my front door with my local riding partner Scott planning to push myself a little bit more than usual since I am a week away from participating in the 2007 Marin Century and wanted to see how strong I was.  Also, I didn’t have anything pressing to return home for, so I figured I would ride a little bit longer and harder than usual.

We headed out on the Redwood Road route that I’ve done many times before.  This is a 45 mile trek with ~3,700 feet of elevation gain.  Typically, this is a 3-hour tour (hum the Gilligan’s Island theme to yourself).  Scott and I took this at a good pace and stopped a couple of times to rest and refill on water and food.  I was feeling strong and decided to add some distance and elevation to my day.  Scott headed on home and I took a left turn up Mount Diablo.

Diablo is an 11 mile climb with a peak at 3,796 feet.  This was my second time climbing the hill.  The first time was a bit different because I started the climb at mile 20 and started the climb at 10am.  Now I was starting the climb at mile 40 and at high-noon.  I was more tired and it was a lot warmer and this had a big impact on my performance.  As I started to climb through the residential community of Alamo, I felt pretty good and then once I entered into the steeper sections of the state park I could feel the weakness in my legs.  I really wanted to get to the top and just told myself that there’s no hurry and to take it slow.  I used a podcast to distract me from over-thinking the climb.

As I passed the first park ranger’s station, I was re-assured.  The next section of hill was far less exposed to the sun and was also not quite as steep.  I cruised through the next 2 miles to the second ranger’s station feeling stronger and confident that I could make it to the top.  The next two miles proved to be tougher than expected.  The heat and the hill here starting to gang up on me and it was getting hard to convince myself to keep going.  About 2 miles after the second station is a large overlook and I stopped for a rest.  I was hoping to get to the top of Mt Diablo without stopping, but that was not to be.  I waited in the shade for about 15 minutes and drank some water, refilling my bottles at the fountain here.

Determined to press on, I headed back up the mountain and suffered the remaining few miles of ascent.  It was hard, it was hot and I was beat!  What’s a really pain in the butt about this climb is that some road engineer thought it would be a good idea to have the last 1000 feet kick up to a 20% grade….. great, just what I needed.  Two others were walking their bikes up this last section and I must admit that I was tempted to join them.  Instead I just stood on my pedals and slowly worked my way up to the summit.

At the top, I started to feel pretty crummy.  I rested for another 15 minutes and refilled bottles again.  My stomach was starting to feel queezy and I wasn’t sure of the cause: too little water, too much water, too little food.  I started my descent and had to take it slow because I felt just a bit too weak to really haul down the mountain.  I was feeling bad enough that I stopped for a break at the first ranger station.  I tried to puke, but it didn’t want to happen.  I got a bit more water and pressed on, just wanting to get back home.

From the base of the climb, it is less than 10 miles home.  This distance took me an hour to cover, almost double what it would normally.  I felt like a turtle as I was passed by other cyclists, and I didn’t care.  I just kept on going wanting nothing more than to take a shower and lie down.  About 4 miles from home, I finally puked up all of the water I was holding in my stomach making me wonder if I really did drink too much water and possibly not quite enough electrolyte-filled Gatorade.  Then, 2 miles from home, I got a flat on my rear tire, just what I needed.  I was so exhausted and fed up that I just walked my bike home rather than trying to fix the flat on the road.

Back at home, I just crashed out trying to recover.  Once I showered, lied down for 30 minutes, and ate something, I started feeling much, much better.  Lesson learned?  Bring more food and more Gatorade.  I enjoyed the route and want to tackle it again sometime, but with better planning and with more people for moral-support.  I also think that I am about 6 months from being able to ride all the way up Mt. Diablo without stopping, so knowing that, I’ll plan for more breaks.