2013 Mountains of Misery Double Metric

MOUNTAINS OF MISERY 2013 The Mountains of Misery are named accurately, filled with misery stacked upon climb after climb.  I had quite a bit of trepidation leading into this event due to the memories from two years ago.  I rode the century route in 2011 and that was exceedingly difficult.  So what do I sign up for this year?  Something even harder, the double-metric ride!

126.2 miles with an elevation climb of ~11,390 feet across what felt like 5 mountain ranges.  That's almost half-way up Mount Everest or ~8 times taller than the Empire State Building.  Spider-man can't fight the Hulk because they aren't in the same power class, well this ride is outside of my rider class.

If this image doesn't scare you as a biker than nothing will.

The weekend started really well with an easy drive down to the camp site at the start of the race.  Beautiful weather was forecast, so why did my insides feel like a butterfly parade?  At the registration booth I made the questionable decision to "man up" for the double metric instead of the century.  Has anyone ever told you to "man up" where it did not result in your personal demise?

I slept really well in the tent Saturday night, got ready and rode 1/4 mile up to the starting line to receive my first and only good news of the day ... the double-metric folk get to start first!  There were about 100 of us and around 525 with more common sense opting for the century.  5 waves in all of riders started 5 minutes apart.  I think the only reason all the riders didn't pass me was because the double-metric and century routes diverged early on.


The first 25 miles are a steady incline that isn't too tough.  It's just the 7am hour that's early and it takes me a bit to stop wishing I was still in bed.  Then the first climb of the day up Pottstown Mountain, 2100 feet over 11 miles and it was steep.  You get a real feel for how high you're climbing when you overlook the sides and  and your brain asks you why on earth you're riding 2 feet from edge.  Next time I'm riding in the middle of the road.


The next climb is 1,200 feet over 4 miles.  That is really steep and I had to walk a short bit of it.  My bike gearing just isn't set for these tough mountain climbs and no one was around to tell me to "man up".  Misery was starting to take a toll.


After 3 hours I had gone about 40 miles.  The realization that I was only 1/3 of the way done hit like a ton of bricks and I was thinking the ride would be 10-11 hours.  Wow, I've never been on my road bike that long.  The couple mountain bike centuries have taken 12 and 13 hours.  This ride turned out to be every bit as hard as those single-track nightmares like the Wilderness 101.

I don't even know what to say after this point as all I did was keep pedaling.  Up the mountain, down the mountain.  It's interesting what goes on in your head during these times of isolation and stress.  Keep turning the cranks, check out scenery, pray those dogs don't jump the fence or break a leash.  Why does everyone in the country own a socially disturbed dog looking for a new chew toy?

Approaching the final hill I had a lot of thoughts going through my head.  None of them was that I would actually ride it.  I failed a couple years ago, so why would I be able to do it today with the increased mileage?  To my surprise and excitement I did ride that final hill from bottom to top.  It was very difficult.  I'm actually pretty tickled about making that climb.

At the top I had some good moments with the two riders finishing just ahead of me.  Ron and Hans were in pretty happy spirits.  Especially Ron because he finally beat someone, me.  I took the prestigious position of "last in class" when I crossed the finish line.

Hold up the number of people you beat.  

And what better way to spend the rest of the day with a 4+ hour ride home by oneself from Blacksburg, VA in the dark?  I was contemplating setting up my tent at a rest area but opted for slugging it out and arrived around 12:30am.  A quick shower and I joined the family in the pop-up camper in the driveway.  I felt pretty good on Sunday, just a little fatigued.  Will I ever return for more misery?  Only time will tell.

Official Lucky Last Place Results:  (Don't laugh unless you've tried to ride this course.)
http://www.mountainsofmisery.com/2013/data/2013-all-v3.pdf

Garmin Statistics

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2013 Casa River Century

The Casa River Century was a little bit shorter this year than the ride last year.  It's been a really tough physical time during this past week.  The bulk of the issue revolves around a 3-on-3 basketball tournament at work last Wednesday. I haven't played ball in over 5 years by design.  There are really good reasons for that decision, all of which came back to me during the tournament.

I guess I thought the tourney was going to be a lightly contested stand-around and shoot jumpers kind of outing .. Wrong!  Double-elimination games to 15 points or 15 minutes against a bunch of guys that are younger, stronger and play regularly.  I entered with Erik Bursch and Jeff Weigand from work.  All of us over 40, with only Bursch playing regularly.

Cutting this short, since this is a biking blog, we won 4 straight games to make it to the Championship game against the winner from the loser bracket.  I was done after game 2.  Games 3 and 4 were just death on top of my already spent body.  This was a "lunch time" event and time was getting late, so we called the game to my delight.  Between me and the thousands that read this blog, I don't think we'll be playing that game.

So I entered the Casa River Century ride with a very painful lower back, hip pointer, sore right foot, jammed left thumb and other undisclosed ailments.  It took a lot of mental fortitude just to drive up to Shepherdstown, WV.  In the end, I rode a really aggressive 50 mile route in the same time it takes me to ride the same distance on the W&OD trail.  The route was rolling hills, nothing too big.

The weather was getting iffy and I felt pretty good after the 50.  I wandered up to the lunch station and parked it for awhile talking with other riders and eating some pretty good food.  And then headed to the car. I think that was a good decision given the Mountains of Misery Century is this Sunday.

I did see a pretty funny sticker along the route.  We've all seen the white stickers on the backs of people's cars with the mom, dad, son, daughter, baby and dog right?  Out in WV they've got a different sense of "family".  Shocking there's an NRA sticker as well.

And the other interesting site was smoke rising from the wooded hills.  Ever see the show "Moonshiners".

In the end, riding time was 2 hours 51 minutes for 50 miles.  Pretty good average speed of 17 1/2 mph.  I'll take that as a lead up to the Mountains of Misery next weekend.

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