Furthermore, the Lewis Grizzard & Catfish ride has a personal connection for me. I did it a few times a number of years ago when it was sponsored by the Coweta County Chamber of Commerce. In fact, it was the very first century I ever did, which happened to be on my 30th birthday that year. I’ve saved the T-shirt from that ride, which I wore to yesterday’s event. The Ferst Foundation organizers were tickled because they had never seen it before:
Lewis Grizzard & Catfish
I have always enjoyed Lewis Grizzard’s writing. For many years he wrote a humorous column for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution until his too-early death from heart disease in 1994. Lewis had a beloved black Labrador retriever named Catfish, who preceded him in death by only a few months. When Lewis died, AJC editorial cartoonist Mike Luckovich created a wonderfully poignant comic strip. I’ve had a print of this strip hanging in my office for years:
I suffer
from an incurable affliction known as book lust. This means that even though I already have
dozens of books waiting for me to read them, I can’t resist buying even
more. I’m especially susceptible to used
book sales. A few years ago I picked up
some Lewis Grizzard books at a used book sale.
I finally read them last year when I was recovering from my crash. (My local library had a summer reading
program that challenged patrons to read at least 20 books over a 10-week
period. Working toward – and reaching! –
this goal helped me get through my long recovery.) All of Lewis Grizzard’s books have wackily
entertaining titles, like the ones I read last year for the library program: When My
Love Returns from the Ladies Room, Will I Be Too Old to Care?; Won’t You Come Home, Billy Bob Bailey?;
and Chili Dawgs Always Bark at Night.
Wake Up
Call, Part I
Sweet
husband Robert accompanied me on yesterday’s century. Even sweeter, he drove us to Moreland, which
is Lewis Grizzard’s hometown and the ride staging location. I especially appreciated Robert driving
because we had to leave about 5:30 A.M for the hour-and-a-half drive. I closed my eyes before we left Jasper
County, and the next thing I knew, we were about five minutes from Moreland!
Wake Up
Call, Part II
We checked
in for the ride and went to change into our kits and get our gear
together. All of a sudden, I had a case
of déjà vu when I saw this route marker near our car:
It was from
the Pedal for Pets ride, which was my July century. Until I saw this pavement marking, I didn’t
realize that we were at one of the rest stops for that ride.
Robert and I
were ready to ride a little before the official start time of 8:00 A.M., and so
we went ahead and got on the road. It
was just slightly cool when we began – cool enough for some beautiful morning
fog:
Less than 30
minutes later, the fog had already burned off.
The weather on yesterday’s ride was just about ideal. I was particularly glad that tropical storm
Karen degenerated and didn’t rain on us.
Robert and I
pedaled along at a steady but not crazy pace.
We encountered rolling hills similar to the ones near home. At about mile 13, we were going up one of the
steepest climbs of the day. All of a
sudden, a group of guys briskly passed us.
We recognized their kits from the Beck Cycling racing team, who often go
to the same races that Robert and I do.
They invited Robert and me to hop onto their pace line. I had been in kind of a dreamy state of
cycling up to that point, but once I snapped out of it, I agreed with Robert
that we should join them. By that time,
they had gotten a little way down the road, and so we had to chase on. I’m not sure whether that was a good or bad
thing. I’m proud that we did catch up,
thanks primarily to Robert’s bridging efforts, but I really should have known
better than to let my heart rate get that high for that long during a century.
Joe Friel, a
fitness expert, has devised a very useful guide to training intensity based on
heart rate zones. The zones correspond
to a percentage of your threshold level, i.e., the highest intensity that you
can maintain for one hour. Note that the
old method of calculating your maximum heart rate as 220 minus your age is not
a good gauge. Your maximum heart
rate, which is genetic, is likely a different number than this calculation, and
you really can’t determine your true maximum heart rate without extreme danger. However, you can determine your threshold
level from a test in which you ride as hard as you can for 20 minutes. Additionally, you can increase your threshold
level with training. Here’s a summary of
heart rate zones and how long you can maintain each one:
Level Name Max. Duration
Level 1 Recovery
Level 2 Endurance All day
Level 3 Tempo 1-5 hours
Level 4 Subthreshold 45-120 minutes
Level 5a Superthreshold 15-60 minutes
Level 5b Anaerobic Endurance 3-7 minutes
Level 6 Power 1 minute
Level 7 Sprint 15 seconds
When Robert
and I chased onto the Beck pace line and rode with them for about the next 12
miles, I noticed that during much of that time, my heart rate monitor indicated
Level 4.5 to 4.8. I knew that I couldn’t
sustain this for very long. At first, I
hoped to hang on until the next rest stop at mile 34, but at about mile 25, I
had to give up the ghost. That
subthreshold effort made the rest of my ride more tiring that it would have
been otherwise. At the next rest stop,
Robert and I learned that one of the Beck team members that we had been riding
with was Jon Atkins. Jon is a super
strong rider that has won the masters category at the Macon Cycling Classic
criterium, hosted by Robert’s and my team, Georgia Neurosurgical
Institute. Additionally, when we first
saw the Beck group, Robert and I were averaging about 17.5 mph. When I dropped off, I was averaging about
19.5 mph. That means that during the
time I was riding with them, we averaged about 24 mph. Yowza!
Poetry in
Motion
The rest of
Robert’s and my ride was fairly uneventful.
Well, we did have one bit of excitement toward the end. On an organized ride, each turn should have
at least two pavement markings. The
first should be at least 25 feet before the intersection to give cyclists time
to prepare for the turn. The second
marking should be at the intersection. A
third “comfort arrow” after the turn, confirming that you went in the correct
direction, is optimal. Some of
yesterday’s pavement markings didn’t give us much advance notice. We caught ourselves on a few almost-missed
turns, but one pavement marker must have slipped by us. We got back to the Moreland city limits and
were only at mile 85. We decided that
the most prudent way to get our last 15 miles was to start over on the course,
ride out 7½ miles, and come back.
It’s like
déjà vu all over again.
It’s kind of
poetic that I had to do this extra mileage to get my century. Back when I did the Lewis Grizzard &
Catfish Ride for my first century, I went to the ride prepared to do the
100-mile route. There had always been a
100-mile option in previous years. When
I got to the ride, however, I found out that they weren’t offering a century
that year! So, I made my own. I did the 60-something-mile route, followed
by the 20-something-mile route, followed by the 12-mile route, giving me a little
over 100 miles. Robert was with me then,
too. He didn’t ride all 100 miles with
me that year, but he waited at the staging area to check in with me as I
completed each loop, making sure that I was OK.
Feed Your
Head
On
yesterday’s ride the first rest stop was at mile 17, but we didn’t stop. We didn’t need to yet, and that was also
during our ride on the Beck Cycling train.
I definitely needed to fuel at the next rest stop at mile 34, though. The very friendly rest stop volunteer
apologized that there were no more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I didn’t really want one of those anyway, but
the rest of the pickings were rather slim, too.
It turns out that the 25-mile and 62-mile riders had already come
through and put a serious hurting on the provisions. It was like the locusts had descended! Even so, Robert and I had enough to eat and
were thankful for it.
I’ve found
that about three rest stops work well for me on centuries. Robert’s and my second rest stop was at mile
56. For the third one, I suggested that
we stop at either mile 80 or 89, depending on how we felt. As we continued, I started getting fatigued,
particularly because of my earlier Level 4 foray, and so I started anticipating
the rest stop at mile 80. We got to mile
82, then mile 83, and didn’t see any rest stop.
That should have been my first clue that we had missed a turn on the
course, but I just figured we’d catch the rest stop at mile 89. In the meantime, my earworm for the day,
“White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane, kept playing in my mind. I wasn’t quite seeing fantastical images of
rabbits, hookah-smoking caterpillars, and red queens, but the dormouse saying
“Feed your head” seemed quite a propos.
When we prematurely
found ourselves back in Moreland at mile 85, we stopped by our car, where
Robert had an extra Hammer bar. What a
difference that made! As we rode the
last part of our ride, I thought about how vital food is for an endurance ride,
contrasting that with people who are hungry every day. My momentary need for food made me grateful
for the Jasper County Community Food Bank, which serves people who need food at
the most basic level.
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