{"id":3709,"date":"2015-08-05T12:01:57","date_gmt":"2015-08-05T19:01:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/?p=3709"},"modified":"2015-08-05T12:01:57","modified_gmt":"2015-08-05T19:01:57","slug":"my-death-ride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/my-death-ride\/","title":{"rendered":"My Death Ride"},"content":{"rendered":"

Contributed by physically and mentally gritty Silver Sage athlete, Laurie Marlowe, who committed, invested and diligently trained to tap and realize her potential at the Death Ride…<\/p>\n

One cold evening last December as I sat in front of my laptop, my thoughts turned to the Death Ride. \u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s been remotely in my radar for a number of years though I thought I\u2019d sworn it off.\u00a0 I\u2019d been working with Julie Young, Head Coach of O2Fitness\/Director of\u00a0Silver Sage Sports and Fitness Lab, for the last few months and she was encouraging me to target some goals for summer of 2015. \u00a0Death Ride, I thought? \u00a0\u00a0For those of you who aren\u2019t familiar, the Death Ride, aka Tour of the California Alps, is a legendary 5-mountain pass, 129- mile, leg burner of a ride with a total of 15,000\u2019 of climbing. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Registration is limited to 3000 people each year and it fills up in two days. Just for the heck of it I clicked on their website to see when registration opened.\u00a0 And guess what?\u00a0 Registration opened that next day.\u00a0 \u00a0I took this as a sign and decided that I needed to go for it.\u00a0 Sent a quick text to my husband who was in Chile on business at the time.\u00a0 \u201cWanna do the Death Ride next year?\u201d\u00a0 I asked.\u00a0 Seconds later and without hesitation came the reply, \u201cSure.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Oh, oh–what had I gotten myself into?<\/p>\n

\"laurie<\/a><\/p>\n

Now I should state that I\u2019ve been riding for a lot of years.\u00a0 \u00a0That said, I\u2019ve never quite tackled anything of that magnitude.\u00a0 And I am, umm, well over 50 at this point: (that\u2019s all the information I\u2019m sharing on this topic).\u00a0\u00a0 Have done a few centuries in the last few years, and some fairly big climbing days both locally and in the Dolomites in 2012, but never 15,000 vertical in a day.\u00a0 And never 125 miles in one day. \u00a0I knew that I could do it, but I wondered, how torturous would this be?\u00a0 Would I never want to see my bike again?<\/p>\n

\"laurie<\/a><\/p>\n

Over the next months Julie guided me though a program that included fast\/hilly rides or hill interval work on Saturdays and longer endurance rides on Sundays.\u00a0 (Endurance on tired legs, she always stated).\u00a0 Weekday workouts were varied but structured and included slow frequency repeats for strength, intervals on flats and hills, as well as hip activation and hip\/trunk stability.\u00a0 Not every week was perfect.\u00a0 A full time work schedule along with going back and forth between two homes presented it\u2019s challenges, but I stuck to the program as best as I could and did my best to make up for any weekday shortcomings on the weekends. \u00a0\u00a0I fit in a few yoga classes to stay flexible. \u00a0\u00a0And just as important as the workouts were the rest days and rest weeks. \u00a0As the event got closer, I was putting in an average of 170 miles per week and upping the ante on Sunday rides with more climbing and more distance\/hours than previously.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to July 11, 2015.\u00a0 After a 3:30 a.m. wake up call, a light breakfast in our hotel room, a short commute to Turtle Rock and we were right on target for our 5:30 a.m. start.\u00a0 Weather was cool but beautiful.\u00a0 As we ascended Monitor, our first pass, I kept Julie\u2019s words in mind.\u00a0 \u201cBreak the ride up into segments.\u201d\u00a0 I had done so in my mind many times and now I was riding at my own pace, comfortably passing many and with absolutely no temptation to get into a \u2018race\u2019 at this stage.\u00a0The descents were serene and relaxing\u2014a chance to recharge.<\/p>\n

Took advantage of the fully supported ride to eat and drink frequently, stopping at least briefly at most rest stops.\u00a0 I had packed a full stash of gels just in case but honestly didn\u2019t eat any of them, going instead for handfuls of chips, fruit, fig bars, and most memorably some amazingly delicious steamed and salted baby red potatoes at the base of Monitor.<\/p>\n

I was finding my groove by the fourth pass and ascended the backside of Ebbett\u2019s easily, feeling great, passing many while still staying well within my tempo\/sub-threshold pace.\u00a0 \u00a0By 1:15 we had completed 4 passes and enjoyed a relaxed and somewhat jubilant lunch at the base of Ebbett\u2019s Pass. \u00a0\u00a0We now had ridden around 80 miles, but still had nearly 50 to go with another 2900\u2019 of climbing.\u00a0 This would prove to be the most challenging segment, after climbing 12,000 feet already.<\/p>\n

Still I knew at this point that my goal of completing five passes would be realized.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0The last 2000\u2019 of climbing up Carson was no doubt the toughest part of the ride, but all of the training had paid off. \u00a0I think particularly helpful was the practice of doing long often strenuous endurance rides on Sunday, which were always performed on \u201ctired legs\u201d after interval work on Saturdays.\u00a0 My body knew how to do this\u2014it had been there before!\u00a0\u00a0 Around 4:30 p.m. we reached the top of Carson and we were back to our car around 5:45, a little over 12 hours after we started.<\/p>\n

\"when-bad-hair-happens\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Feeling tired but happy, I thought about something that Julie had said many times.\u00a0 \u201cWhen you\u2019ve done your training, once you get to the event [whether it\u2019s a race or an endurance event], you\u2019ve done the work.\u00a0 Now you get to enjoy.\u00a0 And you know what?\u00a0 She was right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Contributed by physically and mentally gritty Silver Sage athlete, Laurie Marlowe, who committed, invested and diligently trained to tap and realize her potential at the Death Ride… One cold evening last December as I sat in front of my laptop, my thoughts turned to the Death Ride. \u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s been remotely in my radar for a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3710,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletes-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3709"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3711,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3709\/revisions\/3711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}