06.21.2013 | 8:40 am
I started reading this blog around the time of last year’s 100 MoN. I thought to myself, those people are nuts. But, as I started riding more and learned more about why this event came to be, I decided that this was something I had to do. Having never ridden 100 miles to anywhere, I figured that riding 100 miles to nowhere was as good a place to start as any.
The Plan
My original plan was a triathlon to nowhere, but I’m not cool enough to know anyone with an Endless Pool, so I settled on a duathlon—95 miles of riding on a trainer with 5 miles of running on a treadmill. I thought it would be nice to get off the bike occasionally, so I would ride 19 miles and run a mile. Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat and done. With low resistance on the trainer and high gear on my bike, the day should be downright delightful. The best laid plans…
And….Go!
I wasn’t able to ride on the official race date, so I started riding the morning of Sat. May 25th. I was caffeinated and ready.
(What more do you need?)
(Gaining inspiration from those who have gone before)
This was a terrible idea
Somewhere around mile 21 or so, I realized, I’m not in running shape, which left my legs tired. So, I quickly went from smiling…
To seriously reconsidering life choices…
Settling in
Because I told several people I was doing this have immense willpower and resolve, quitting was not an option. At some point, I settled into a rhythm of bike, transition and run.
(Shoes still clipped in…I hear it’s a thing.)
Done!
I finished 100 miles in 8:46:00, winning my division and setting a new course record. The winning time included the unsanctioned and unofficial 3 rd event of sitting on the couch complaining. I daresay it was my strongest event.
(It’s important to refuel after a strenuous effort.)
What I learned
- I only hate running when I’m doing it. Sitting here at my computer, a run sounds pretty good
- You can only drink so much orange Gatorade
- Running in bike shorts is awkward, at best
- Anyone who would participate in such an event is the best kind of crazy
- I will never do this event again…indoors
Thank you to Fatty for putting on this event year after year and to all the swag-givers for giving swag. This was an awesome experience…I can’t wait for next year!
Comments (10)
06.21.2013 | 5:46 am
A Note from Fatty: After reading this report, why not check out another by The Self-Righteous Cyclist? Click here.
100 Miles of Nowhere Race Report: Winner of the 64 Times Across the 64th Parallel Category
by Gary Cooper
Delta Junction, the small town my wife and I call home, is at the end of the Alaska Highway, in the interior of Alaska. By many people’s standards it is in the middle of nowhere. With a limited amount of paved roads to choose from, I decided to ride a 2.5-mile out and back section of a nearby road that joins the Alaska Highway at milepost 1415. The official end of the Alaska Highway is milepost 1422. I considered riding the additional mile to the Alaska Highway, but that might be considered as going “somewhere” and I wanted to be sure that I was riding 100 miles to ”nowhere.”
The road ahead on the day of the ride
I would travel north – south and cross over the 64th parallel, which is 177 miles south of the Arctic Circle. By riding the five-mile round trip twenty times over the 64th parallel, I would go over and back 40 times.
Looking southwest to the Alaska Range along the route
I decided to take a short off-the-bike refueling break every 5 laps (25 miles) but before each break I would do an additional 3 loops at the marker I placed at latitude 64.000. By doing the additional twelve loops I would cross the 64th parallel 64 times.
Latitude 64.00000
I started riding about 9:30AM and finished around 4:30, with a riding time of 6:08:24. The high temperature of the day was 80 degrees and there was a west wind blowing at 15 mph the last four hours of the ride.
Mt. Hayes from the ride route
The day went off with out a hitch with my wife and several friends stopping by to cheer me on through out the day. Hopefully I successfully secured a top spot in the category for the number of crossings of the 64th parallel in one day by a 60-year-old.
Many thanks to Fatty for spearheading this great fundraising event, all the sponsors for the fantastic gifts, and the helpful folks at Twin Six.
PS from Fatty: It is my hope that Gary will do this exact ride again in four years…when he is 64.
Comments (10)
06.20.2013 | 4:54 pm
by Sarah
In choosing a course for the 100 Miles of Nowhere I focused on the “nowhere” attribute. Near Montreal there is a man-made strip of land in the St. Lawrence river. It was created to separate the river from the St. Lawrence Seaway, which is a series of locks allowing ships to travel from the Great Lakes down the river to the Atlantic Ocean. The strip of land is about 50 yards wide, 20 or 30 feet above the level of the river, and over 10 miles long. For a bit over 6 miles there is a road on top of it, a road beloved by cyclists because cars are not allowed on it. The road has no name (there’s a sign near it directing you to the “estacade” which I think is an old Iroquois word meaning “place where people in Lycra go”). It’s not quite in Montreal or any other political jurisdiction (I’m not sure it’s even in Canada because the Seaway is a joint U.S./Canadian project). There are no buildings or addresses on it. It’s nowhere. So I decided to ride 100 miles on it.
On Friday, May 31, I dropped my kids at school, walked home, jumped on the bike, and rode the 8 miles to Nowhere. My goal was to ride seven laps and make it home before my son (age 7) got out of school, although I had arranged for someone else to get him if I didn’t make it on time. My wife was out of town out her 25th college reunion (one of her classmates founded Strava. How cool would it be if she got to know him?)
Lap One: a normal ride along Nowhere. I establish a comfortable pace, 19 m.p.h. I notice that one of my big worries, that there would be swarms of shadflies, is not coming to pass. There are a few, but it is tolerable. They land on you and just sit there, not biting or anything.
Also, although there was a 30% chance of rain forecast, the skies are cloudless.
Lap Two: still on schedule. Nowhere consists of two miles heading south, two miles of gradual turning to the west, then two miles heading west. I notice a significant headwind, maybe 15 or 20 m.p.h., on the western leg. But of course it’s a tailwind on the return trip, so it’s a wash, it’s all good.
Lap Three: remarkably consistent pace. I think about how the 100 Miles of Nowhere is like the Doughnut Race in that they both have two elements. For the Doughnut Race, biking and eating. For the 100 MON, biking and fighting boredom. I don’t pretend that my Nowhere course is as much of a challenge as riding indoors or doing 3000 laps of my driveway. When it comes to mental toughness, the people who did those rides are are like Eddy Merckx and I’m just a Fred. But my Nowhere is still tough. I pass the time flicking hitchhiking shadflies off my jersey and listening to songs in my head.
Lap Four: Still on pace, but it’s becoming an effort, especially into the wind. Ear worm of “Ever Fallen in Love” by Nouvelle Vauge becomes annoying. I try singing “Renegades of Funk” out loud but cannot kill the ear worm. I notice that redwing blackbirds were out in the morning, but now the predominant species is the goldfinch. Perhaps redwings get up early to get worms, but goldfinches eat shadflies, so they can sleep in. I flick some annoying shad flies from my legs so the goldfinches will have more to eat.
Lap Five: A half minute slower. But what’s a half minute in the grand scheme of things? I think about averages. Sure, two miles into the wind and then two miles of tailwind average out to no wind at all, but it is definitely not the same as riding on a calm day. It’s like the mathematician with one foot in a bucket of scalding water and one foot in a bucket of ice water. When asked how his feet felt, he said, “On average, they feel just right.”
Montreal weather this spring has been cool and not particularly rainy. On average. But late March and early April were snowy and cold, so my outdoor training started late. Then the second half of April and early May were beautiful, dry, and relatively warm, so I was riding a lot. The rest of May was terrible. Last week it didn’t get above 50 degrees, with constant drizzle and high winds. So I lost some fitness and certainly was not acclimating to hot summer weather. Now, for the 100 MON, the temperature was heading into the high 80s, with humidity around 60%. I wasn’t confident that I would handle it well.
Lap Six: “Two minutes is not going to make the difference between picking up my son on time or just seeing him when he gets home. 19 m.p.h. is just a number. Hey, I live in Canada now, I should go with metric anyway. 18.6 miles is 30 kilometres. That’s a good round number.
“Ever fallen in love with someone you shouldn’t have fallen in love with? No, but I’ve gotten songs stuck in my head that I shouldn’t have ever listened to in the first place. And I’ve left an ‘emergency’ caffeinated gel in my saddle bag for two years, sucked it down near the end of a hot 100 mile ride, and immediately felt nauseous. If only my swag bag had arrived, I’d have some fresh ride food. But no, I live in Canada now, so mail from the States takes forever. Canada, eh? I remember when I was five, on our summer vacation we visited Niagara Falls. On the Canadian side I walked up to a Mountie and asked, ‘Where’s the snow?’ I could use some snow now. Remember last week, how it felt with my toes cramping on the cold kitchen floor in the morning. I should focus on that. Remember how it felt last week. Remember how it felt last week. Remember how it felt last week.”
Lap Seven: “Five minutes is probably not going to make the difference between picking up my son at school or just seeing him when I get home. Even ten minutes. Anyway, he’d enjoy going home with someone different for a change.”
“I thought that staying hydrated would take care of me. But I’m obviously drinking enough and getting lots of electrolytes, yet I still feel dead. Not the bonk, not cramps, just dead. My legs do not want to move. After I stopped for a quick break down near the river and cooled off I felt lively, but now that I’m hot again the legs won’t spin.
“30% chance of rain? Sure, on average. But it can’t rain 30%. Either it rains or it doesn’t. Either you’re pregnant or you’re not. Today there is 0% cool, refreshing rain. 100%, hot, humid, windy sun.
‘Just keep turning the pedals. Just get through the headwind section to the turnaround, then it will be a tailwind. Just enjoy the tailwind, no need to push it, without the headwind it’s too hot to push it. Just let the shad flies cling to you, what’s the harm, it takes too much energy to flick them off. Just keep turning the pedals. Just a short crosswind straight section to go. Just turn the pedals. Just catch those two women on mountain bikes. Surely you can catch them, you’re not that dead. One last sprint. There’s the bridge. Done.”
Lap Heading Home: Focusing on finishing the Nowhere part of the course helps me finish the Nowhere part of the course. But then comes the 8 miles of generally uphill, headwind riding back into Montreal. As I get closer to downtown I realize how much cooler it is in the middle of the river. And quieter. And the air is cleaner, despite the bugs.
I wobble up towards Mt. Royal (I live two blocks from the bottom of the climb, along the route of the 1974 world championships won by Eddy Merckx) and looked at the time. My son got out of school three minutes ago.
I pull up to my front door just in time to see him coming down the street on his bike. He starts sprinting to me, out of the saddle, his backpack bobbing up and down behind his head with each pedal stroke. “Did you do it, did you do it?” he shouts. I feel pretty good. I take the 100 MON swag package out of the mailbox and we go in together for a cool drink and an afternoon snack.
Comments (20)
06.20.2013 | 3:01 pm
A Note from Fatty: Want more reports? Steve B wrote a good one over at his blog. Check it out.
by Raymond D
I am reasonably fit – I have just finished a 9 day 600 mile stage race so my legs were ready, but 100 miles was still intimidating as the longest ride I had ever done was 80 miles!
I had decided to do 10 laps of 10 miles in a park in central Johannesburg, the biggest city in South Africa. The amazing thing for us mtb riders in Johannesburg, is that there is a protected green belt in the city which allows you to do rides of up to 50 miles, crossing only a few streets. This is right in the heart of suburbia and sandwiched between major commercial districts. Not for nothing is Johannesburg known as the “city in a forest” – the city has the distinction of coming up on satellite vegetation maps as one of the largest man made forests in the world. The route is a great blend of single track and jeep track, and has around 600ft of climbing in the loop.
The day started at 7:00 when I met a mate of mine who had agreed to do the first lap with me on his single speed, this turned into a lap and a half with a bit of a detour of the normal route because he wanted to show me where someone had built around 2 miles of new single track. This thing happens out here fairly often – riders figure out a way to add something new in and tend to go off and built it themselves. Its a bit of a frontier mentality. I decided that if he could do it on a single speed, I would join him for a lap without changing gears either – probably not the thing you should do at the start of a 100 miles, but it seemed a good idea at the time. I regretted it in the last lap.
The ride took me just under 10 1/2 hours to complete, and I finished riding at 6:30pm. Some of the highlights for me were:
1) Just chilling on a route that we normally race around; trying to look around and enjoy things with new eyes each lap. Its amazing how much actually changes during the day – if you were looking out for it. Seeing horses, parrots and bird life, people walking dogs, kids flying kites. Watching the colors / temperature / amount of people in the park change with each lap.
2) Having my mate Vernon not pitch for the laps he was going to join me for (given that I had told him on the day we registered this was a bit poor) – but having him donate 1/2 my entry fee to a local charity who raises money for kids oncology.
3) Some light banter from my friends – one who wanted to have me skip the ride to go kite surfing and offered to pay the entry fee if I would skip it, and one who thought this was a bit crappy and offered to pay the entry fee if I finished. Needless to say I took the finish and get the donation option, not the skip it one – and raised another 1 1/2 times the entry fee for CHOC, childrens oncology.
4) All the guys who followed me on facebook and sent encouragement during the day.
5) Super stoked when my family brought me a burger for lunch and I got to see my three kids – at ages 1/3/5 they were pretty excited about the whole thing.
6) Finishing in the dark – I had never done the route at night before. Next time i will take a light or start earlier. Awesome to ride it anyway!
7) Meeting a TV bike show celeb half way through the ride, he was using his new cyclo-cross bike and joined me for a lap. When I told him about the whole thing, he was really impressed and will be doing what he can to get some more support for the event in South Africa next year. His whole ethos revolves around bike life, and it was really great to chat about how you could go out and do some totally different things on a bike – he is always off adventuring around the country, so really interesting guy to chat too. A real highlight for me to take a photo of him on the loop.
8) Finishing, and knowing that I had done something bigger than myself, and had helped a good cause in my own small way. 100 MON will be a really great memory for years to come for me and I am looking forward to getting my t-shirt in the mail – I will be framing it and smiling each time I look at it.
Comments (10)
06.20.2013 | 8:08 am
A Note from Fatty: I plan to post a few 100MoN race reports today, so you may want to check back a few times.
100 Miles of Nowhere Race Report: Winner of the left-handed 50 year old cancer survivor who lives on Ivy Drive in Simpsonville, SC Division
by Jerry Pringle
I would like to begin my race report for the 2013 edition of the 100 Miles of Nowhere by thanking Fatty for setting the whole thing up, and for his commitment to helping others. I am proud to say that this was my first century, and my first win of any kind (of course, I was racing in the left-handed 50 year old cancer survivor who lives on Ivy Drive in Simpsonville, SC!)
Below is the summary of the ride taken from my Garmin. I contemplated the true 100 Miles of Nowhere, in my basement on rollers, but I didn’t think I could do it without falling and hurting myself. Next I thought that I may do it on a traffic circle (too much traffic) or perhaps the bus loop at an elementary school near my house (too many tight U-turns would kill my speed.) I settled on a 7.15 mile loop around an industrial park called Donaldson Center (now called SCTAC, but no one knows it by that name!)
I brought two bikes to ride, in case I had a catastrophic mechanical breakdown on one of them. My road bike is an older Jamis Comet, which I have ridden to my previous longest distance, 56 miles at the Augusta 70.3 triathlon last September. Thus any distance over 57 miles set my new PR! My tri bike, purchased in April, is an older Cervelo P3. I have not gone over 14 miles on it either, so I went into the 100 MoN fully prepared!
Both bikes have aluminum frames, and Ultegra components (the Jamis is a 9 speed, the Cervelo a 10 speed.) Surprisingly I did not have any breakdowns, flats, or accidents! I could not be more thankful for that! While the Jamis is more comfortable, the Cervelo is faster. The Cervelo is comfortable only if you are really going hard, though – I found that riding fast on it is better than just cruising slowly. The Jamis can be ridden slowly or fast, depending on how you feel or the hills that you are climbing.
Here is a picture of my bikes:
I alternated directions for each lap – one lap clockwise, the other counterclockwise. I did this so that I wouldn’t get too bored, and to ride the uphills and downhills from both directions. I rode the first 4 laps on the Jamis, the next 4 on the Cervelo, then 3 on the Jamis and the final 3 on the Cervelo. I had an absolute blast with the race, and finished as thankful and excited as any race I have done (9 marathons, 12 halves, the 70.3 in Augusta, and several dozen 5k and 10k). I was grinning from ear to ear, and both exhausted and pumped from the effort.
I started running and biking 4 years ago, after completing treatment for lymphoma. My oncologist told me that I would have to start doing cardio workouts to burn off the effects of the chemo. I started chemo in January 2009, and finished up in June 2009 — every checkup since then has been excellent, and there have been no traces of the cancer since!
I had gotten an email from a high school classmate about raising money for Team in Training just as I was finishing up the chemo treatments (May 2009.) After checking them out, I went to an information meeting. The coach that talked about the events for that summer got choked up about running up the hill to the Iwo Jima Memorial at the Marine Corps Marathon, and I was sold! I hadn’t run more than a couple hundred yards at one time in 20 years, but I signed up that day!
I started with the plan that my coach gave us, and I have used it for every marathon since (my PR is a turtlelike 4:40, but I have finished every one with no injuries!) I finished the MCM in a shade over 6 hours, and I cannot describe the feeling of running up the hill and through the finish. Getting the very impressive MCM medal was a total blast, and to have my family, including my Mom and brother, there made it very special.
I have since completed the Chicago Marathon (on 10/10/10!) and have now become a TNT run coach for our winter teams. I honestly believe that when you sign up for any event that makes you nervous, then you commit to doing the training necessary to complete it. The downside, however, is once you have done several big events (marathons, long bike rides) and can kind of predict how they will go, you tend to neglect putting in the training.
I did take way too much food and water – I had 3 Bonk Breaker bars (ate one), 6 Poweraid gels (ate 3), 2 peanut butter, Nutella, and honey sandwiches (ate half of one), 2 gallons of water and a gallon of Gatoraid (drank 1 gal water and half the Gatoraid). I met up with some friends during lap 4, and rode with them for a mile or so, but for the rest of the day I was alone. I had a great time, and again, thank you Fatty for all you have done and continue to do! I look forward to doing this event next year and beyond!
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