Days 1 and 2 of rising are done! We did about 40 miles yesterday and 57 today. Beginning in Tecate, CA, across from the border crossing, our first day started hot at 9am climbing up a jagged (by which I mean how it looks on an elevation map: lots of ups and downs, but overall an ascent) and climbed from 1700 ft to 6000ft.
I never got my granny gear (it would have been a whole mess of work, and all the mechanics I visited kept trying I sell me a new bike instead) so the climbs have been arduous, doing about 30rpm or less (optimally I think one should stay above 60rpm) and occasionally grinding along at 5mph for some of the worse slopes. Stephanie has gears, but she makes up for it by carrying twice as much gear as I. In addition to her personal effects, she's also carrying our shared equipment,like the tent, cooking gear, food (all awesome due to her and forte's great prep work-- do applaud them, dear readers!)...
Neither Steph nor I drank enough water that day, but I was lagging her by at least 2 bottles by lunch. Though I did try to pace myself, my usual bottle/hour didn't quite cut it in continual sun exposure and the rigors of climbing.
About 3/4 up the way of our long climb yesterday, 5 miles (90 minutes???) to go, I came to be curled up in the fetal position under a crop of bushes by a disused driveway off the sunset highway. "Stephanie, I think I've hit my limit..." My neck (craned upward from my huddled over riding position) and head were dying, I had recently pulled over to dry-hurl, and I wasn't feeling too good about my physical condition or myself in general.
I wondered why I thought this would be a great adventure, why I thought I was capable of doing it, and why there was such a huge discrepancy between my self-image and self-reality. Worst, I was letting Stephanie down. Less bad, but still sucky, I felt like I should probably have told fewer people about te journey. Or to the people who wondered if I could accomplish it, maybe I should have smiled shyly and said something about doing my best, instead of confidently saying that it would be tough but that I was excited for it.
Lots of bad ideas stank through my head, as a horde of flies buzzed around and attacked me without rest. I felt cold, though it was rather hot. Half an hour later, the bottle or two of of water I drank before lying down kicked in, and we finished the last hour or two of our climb.
We reckon I might have had minor heat exhaustion (or at least terrible dehydration), but maybe that's something we said after the fact just to make me feel better. Regardless of the the reason behind the madness, I felt like a different person as we rolled up towards burnt rancherita, and have felt pretty good (even on the not-so-fun climbs) since then.
Today was relatively easy, as it was predominately a descent, and we got the cooling sensation of wind going 20mph or so (when climbing it feels like we're just sitting there, not moving and getting baked in the sun for long periods of time). No injuries save a little sunburn.
Tomorrow will be awesome, and probably more difficult than today. We hope to do 37-40 miles including 6 mi, ten mi, and 4 mi climbs with ascents of 1.6km, 1.6km and 1km respectively. If we get started early we can hopefully get the first one out of the way before it gets too hot. We would go further today, except there's no campground for the next 30 miles.
Yikes, what about the adventures and be philosophical revelations? Typing on an iPhone is slow and not as cool as the nature here, and I wanted to leave somewhat of a cliff-hanger. Until next time... Ttfn!
No comments:
Post a Comment