Wizards 50th Birthday

Quote: Wizard

Thanks, mom. ... I won't push it to the point of blinding pain.

My only experience is helping my friend Ace through that 50 mile mountain run. Having seen some of his physical accomplishments including repeated marathons, the prospect of doing 12 minute miles without even breathing heavily just didn't sound that awful. But he went down hard to the ground with blinding pain and he couldn't move for about ten minutes.

He recovered but he was stuffing his face with chocolate candy and with salt. He said he was getting all different kinds of cravings at different points in the race.

I found this suggestion for ultra marathon racing: During the race, eat whatever worked for you during your training runs: cookies, raisins, figs, crackers, pretzels, energy bars. Whatever. And drink continuously: eight ounces or so every 15 to 20 minutes, including electrolyte-loaded sports drinks. Consider high-caffeine drinks such as Mountain Dew over the last 15 miles.

It can get windy out there. Do you plan to start in the early morning?

Quote: Ayecarumba

It can get windy out there. Do you plan to start in the early morning?

Yes, but not so much for that reason. Moreso to enjoy the cool morning and make sure I don't run out of daylight.

In unicycle news, I'm proud to say I did a 40-mile ride on my 36" big wheel today. I tracked it on my Garmin GPS watch as opposed to my Strava app. My route was pretty flat most of the time and just wandered various bike trails in Henderson.

I was tired at the end but definitely felt like 50 miles is not too far off. I might do it ahead of schedule, like in about a month, to avoid the heat of spring.

Quote: Wizard

In unicycle news, I'm proud to say I did a 40-mile ride on my 36" big wheel today.

In 6 hours? Better or worse. Or would you rather not say.

Quote: Pacomartin

In 6 hours? Better or worse. Or would you rather not say.

Except for the last ten miles, my pace was about 6:30, for a speed of about 9.23 miles per hour. Assuming I kept that pace the whole time, with no breaks, and no slowdown towards the end, my time would have been 4:20. I would roughly add another hour for breaks and the slow down, so about 5:20 total, well under 6:00.

It is a pain getting the rides from my watch to the Garmin web site. In this case I also didn't stop it when I was done and also recorded the drive home. Nevertheless, I'll see what I can do about posting the ride.

Quote: Wizard

Except for the last ten miles, my pace was about 6:30, for a speed of about 9.23 miles per hour..

So 3:15 for the first 30 miles, leaving you 4:45 to go the last 20 miles. Sounds positive for under 8 hours.

How about consumption? Were you drinking liquids from the beginning and consistently? Any food or just power bars? Any caffeine? What kind of pain at the end? Was it your whole body or just legs? Any problem with blisters or chafing?

Obviously 6:30 minute miles is pretty fast. Do you think you should slow it down to 7:30 to have more energy for the end?

Perhaps the challenge needs to be a longer ride in 8 hours or a shorter time limit for 50 miles. Perhaps 6.5 hours?

Quote: Wizard

Except for the last ten miles, my pace was about 6:30, for a speed of about 9.23 miles per hour. Assuming I kept that pace the whole time, with no breaks, and no slowdown towards the end, my time would have been 4:20. I would roughly add another hour for breaks and the slow down, so about 5:20 total, well under 6:00.

It is a pain getting the rides from my watch to the Garmin web site. In this case I also didn't stop it when I was done and also recorded the drive home. Nevertheless, I'll see what I can do about posting the ride.

In strava, you can snip of the end of the trace.

Here is a Garmin connect link to the ride. Everything on the 215 to the west of the starting point was in my car. On the drive home I finally stopped the recording.

Quote: TheCesspit

In strava, you can snip of the end of the trace.

In Garmin Connect you can't.

Quote: Pacomartin

So 3:15 for the first 30 miles, leaving you 4:45 to go the last 20 miles. Sounds positive for under 8 hours.

How about consumption? Were you drinking liquids from the beginning and consistently? Any food or just power bars? Any caffeine? What kind of pain at the end? Was it your whole body or just legs? Any problem with blisters or chafing?

Obviously 6:30 minute miles is pretty fast. Do you think you should slow it down to 7:30 to have more energy for the end?

Focusing on the segment of the ride on the unicycle, as opposed to my car, the whole thing took 4:58. So, including breaks, that is a pace of 7.45 minutes per mile. Extrapolating that over 50 miles, it would take 372.5 minutes, or 6.2 hours.

I didn't consume much during the ride. About a liter of water and four protein bars. I meant to mix Gatorade powder into my water bottle, but forgot to before I left. Whenever I do anything really huge I find I don't eat that much, as it seems to consume energy to eat rather than give energy.

In the future, I will try to be more vigilant about bringing Gatorade or electrolyte tablets and salty foods. I love Chex mix, so probably that.

To be honest, I wasn't in pain at the end, just tired. I think that all the hill climbing I've been doing recently has prepared me well for a flat course.

Next week I plan to do a 42-mile ride from near the Green Valley Ranch to Jean and back.

Quote: Wizard

Focusing on the segment of the ride on the unicycle, as opposed to my car, the whole thing took 4:58.
...
To be honest, I wasn't in pain at the end, just tired. I think that all the hill climbing I've been doing recently has prepared me well for a flat course.

I forget what you said your time was in the marathon, but I think it was about 4.5 - 5 hours. It sounds like the marathon was much more painful.

If I haven't said congratulations enough, the whole adventure is very impressive. I assume you are still using the longer cranks.