I am thoroughly amazed that for two weeks in a row I have been able to do my long rides outside. I guess I'll take snowy Mondays if it continues to mean that the weekend weather is going to be good. This weekend is not supposed to be quite as warm as last weekend was, but I'll take it. However, all did not go exactly perfectly. This week of course the sun was coming up later, so I couldn't start as early as I did last week. I have a strange obsession with starting my long rides as early as possible. Essentially, towards the end of the ride I don't want to be thinking to myself, "I could be done already if I had just started earlier!" So depending on the circumstances, I usually aim for as soon as it is light enough. Definitely a different thing this time of year than it is in the summer. Yes, I've started as early as 4:40 in the morning (that particular day it was supposed to get close to 100 degrees and it really did matter that I finish as early as possible) But today it only meant 7am.
The major problem with this is that of course it is March, and very much still winter in spite of the slight temperature reprieve. And of course it is coldest in the mornings. So what was the temperature when I set of this morning? According to my thermometer, it was 16 degrees. This is the part where you accuse me of being crazy, and I really can't argue with that. I've never ridden when it was that cold out before, but I knew it was supposed to warm up. It actually didn't feel as bad as a ride I went on back in December that was somewhere around 24 the whole time and incredibly windy. For example, this time no ice formed on my face mask.
I was surprised actually at just how long it seemed to take to warm up. Sometimes the sun warms things up quickly... and sometimes it doesn't. And the fact that there is still plenty of snow on the ground surely doesn't help. Because my mouth and nose were covered by my trusty face mask, which I wouldn't have made it far without, I didn't drink anything for the first chunk of the ride. I couldn't bring myself to expose my face to the elements. I wasn't really all that cold, amazingly enough, although my fingers were giving me some trouble for a while, and it took at least 2 hours before I could shift back into the big ring with my left hand because it just stopped working. At least the other one worked.
I had gone about 14 miles before I thought about maybe braving the cold and drinking some water. It was then that I noticed what should've been an obvious inevitability, given the circumstances: my water was all frozen. I had four bottles that weren't going to be of much use to me since they were nothing but neatly-contained blocks of ice. Crap.
I considered my options. I could've just turned around right then and gotten some fresh water bottles that weren't ice, but I just didn't want to do that. even if it probably was the smartest thing to do. I could tell that at the rate things were going, waiting for the bottles to thaw on their own was probably not a viable option, unless I was willing to go another 3-4 hours without water. Even if it warmed up to 40, which was probably as good as it was going to get, that probably wouldn't melt them very fast. I remembered a gas station at around mile 44 on my route that had a big convenience store in it and thought maybe they would have a microwave for the typical convenience store nasty burritos that I could use to defrost them. The particular route I was on didn't supply me with a world of options, so that seemed to be my best hope.
I pedaled on, preoccupied with whether or not I was suddenly going to just hardly be able to turn the pedals due to dehydration. I'm no stranger to riding under-fueled though. I used to not really take in anything on rides until they got close to the 4-hour mark. I'm not supposed to do that anymore, but I know I could if I had to. I also once rode 112 miles over the Kancamangus highway from my parents house at the lake, climbing up to 2800' on nothing but a bottle and a half of water. I didn't plan on it, but my stomach was bothering me and I just couldn't stand the idea of putting anything else in there. Although I think if I recall correctly I took a 3-hour nap right after. Still didn't eat.
But anyway, it was still way colder out than I thought it should've been, but I don't know exactly how cold. I miss my old bike computer with the thermometer on it... even if sometimes you're better off not knowing. I happened to notice in my aero bottle the shadow of liquid bouncing back and forth on the top, tanting me. I tried to take a sip, but the straw was frozen. I had managed to get a couple of slushy sips from my electrolyte bottle, as maybe the freezing point was lower on that one, but that didn't last either. After about 35 miles I pulled over for a minute to eat half a Powerbar - an ordeal that is much easier when you can stop and remove bulky gloves, as I came awfully close to falling over the last time I tried to do this with those stupid gloves on - and I took my aero bottle out from between the bars and downed the little bit of liquid H2O that still remained on the top. It was mostly coated in ice, but that water sure was good.
I continued on, ironically riding along a flowing river and considering going over and dunking my head in, but thought better of it. I finally reached the convenience store I hoped would be my savior, thinking my microwave plan was brilliant. It might've been... if they had one. Crap, again. I was only 18 miles from home, even if I still had to ride for another 3 and a half hours I think at that point. I knew I could make it home to reload, but the remainder of the ride would be questionable at that point. So my other back-up plan was to swing by a friend's house about 12 miles closer than mine, and beg for help. They're athletes, so they know. I made it to the house and was ecstatic to see a car in the garage. My timing was perfect, just before taking the kids to swimming lessons. I had trouble articulating my issue because my face was cold enough that I couldn't talk quite right, but I ran my bottles under the hot water and tried to chug as much as I could. I saw that it had now warmed up to 39 degrees, even if it didn't really feel like it.
After that little pit stop and some drinkable water, albeit still full of lots of ice chunks and therefore almost painfully cold to drink, I still decided to head for home to swap for some less bulky gloves, lose the now-unnecessary face mask and thaw the straw of my aero bottle so I could drink from it. That was easy enough, just a run under the faucet and I filled the ice-lined bottle with hot water so I could finally drink from it. I never drink enough unless the straw is right there in my face. Then I could finally set off at full water capacity without fear of icing and finish the last two hours of my ride. This is the hardest part since I had to finish out the last hour and ten minutes with my heart rate about 10-15 beats above where I did the rest of the ride. Not easy after all that riding, especially when a whole bunch of it was done dehydrated.
But somehow I finished, after spending a bunch of time wondering why I had never really encountered this issue before. Aside from previous unwillingness to ride in such cold temperatures, I realized I've just never had to do rides this long this early in the season before, so I would never have felt the need to start so early. I also had to do a 50-minute transition run afterward, even though all I really wanted to do was collapse. I sucked down a gel , changed into shorts since it was all the way up to 45 by then, and hit the road.
I was fairly skeptical about how that run might turn out. It's never good to dig yourself in a hole as far as hydration is concerned early on for such a long training day. It can make the end of said training session quite unpleasant. It was also the longest transition run I'd done since 2005. For a while I was on the never longer than 30 minutes plan, but I guess I'm off it now. I always felt like you could fake it through 30 minutes, but that extra 20 made it seem a little scarier.
It was one of those runs where I often wondered how my legs were still moving forward. It was also one of those runs where I was basically just waiting to bonk and start hallucinating and considering hitchhiking home. Even on a 30-minute transition run once I finally had to just walk the last mile home because I had nothing left. On that outing I had briefly considered taking a couple of the Clif Blocks that were left in an open package on the side of the road (not something you see every day on the side of the road when not running on some race course) but, you know, it was open and surely could've been sitting there for a while. But this time, I didn't have to stop and walk. I felt like it could've happened at any moment, and my legs were not happy with any hill I had to try and run up, but my pace wasn't terrible and I finally finished. Again not thrilled that I was not somewhere with a seat in the shower.
So I'm glad I could ride outside, but just let that be a reminder that just because you can dress warm enough for the cold weather, doesn't mean your water isn't going to freeze on you. And those rides are a lot more enjoyable with water. Hopefully this will not be an issue from here on out because it just won't be that freezing anymore. But I'm not going to bet on it. I'll just maybe consider starting a little later next time, even though just today not finishing until 2 didn't thrill me.
Now I must continue drinking all of the fluids I can get my hands on.
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