Riding the road to Hana
April 24, 2006
Okay, I’ve been on vacation in Hawaii since the 17th so I’ve missed spin class and our Saturday training ride. I was worried that all this time off was going to leave me out of shape so I was really excited when I found a flyer for Go Cycling Maui. They rent out road bikes and take people out on rides with a full support vehicle following behind with food, water, and anything else we could want. One of their rides is a 36 mile ride with a 10,000 foot climb up Mt. Haleakela which is believed to be the longest continuous climb in the U.S. I wanted to go on that ride just for bragging rights, but they didn’t have any groups going there so instead I went on a ride along the road to Hana.
This trip was 46 miles with around 3,900 feet of climbing. The first half was a good pace. I was having a good time out riding with people again. Thanks to my TNT training, I felt really well prepared to be riding with this group. They used the same calls and hand signals while riding that I was used to. I spent the first half of the ride riding along chatting with everyone and enjoying the views. We kept a pretty good pace which was apparently because we were riding mostly downhill.
At the turnaround we stopped for some banana bread, we switched ride leaders for the trip back. Our new ride leader has done several Ironman length triathlons and had ridden pretty slowly on the ride out so she was ready to challenge us on the way back. Four of us started riding back together and we quickly spread out trying to keep up with our leader as we just kept climbing and climbing. After only a couple miles, it started raining on us. I’m really glad I had gotten experience in the rain just the week before. Throughout this, I stayed with the leader for a few miles but eventually dropped back and one of the other guys passed me. There were points where I really wanted to pull over and catch my breath, but somehow I managed to keep going. I kept my heart rate at 92 – 96% for a good half hour and amazed myself my catching back up with the guy in front of me right as we finished the main climb. Now we were in some rolling hills and I was able to get a second wind while recovering in the downhills. At some point I even managed to catch up with the leader. Now I just worked hard to stay on her wheel and draft behind her. She was riding hard and kept checking to see if I was still there. After a several miles of this, she gave up trying to lose me and we rode alongside each other and talked. Three miles from the finish was a turn where we all grouped back up and rode in together. There I was able to talk to the other guys. The one in front of me had run out of energy. Again I had my TNT training to thank for my good preparation—I had a large breakfast with lots of carbs and that really must have made the difference. I was really amazed at how much energy I had at the end of the ride. We finished the ride with 3 hours 5 minutes of moving time at 14.6 miles per hour. That makes this ride very similar to the Great Western Loop ride I went on, but this was a little longer and I rode it a little faster.
Probably partly because I was riding a different bike and partly because we rode really hard after a week off, my legs really hurt that afternoon and next day. Fortunately being on vacation in Hawaii, I was able to sit around the pool and in the hottub and relief.