Jamie Thingelstad

Fitness

Mar 16, 2001 ∞

Hellweek, Day 7 - Rollercoaster Ride

We followed up the death ride with the Rollercoaster. I have to admit, aside from the headwinds and the rather cold weather and a general lack of convenience stores, this ride is gorgeous. The ride goes through some really pretty canyons where you ride along streams up through Majestic Rock state park, and has some incredible views. While the ride has a respectable amount of climbing, it didn’t feel like it was beating you on the head all day. All in all, great route. Believe it or not, there was even a flat stretch for a little while!

Here is the ride map.



Like I said above, this ride didn’t seem to have that much climbing, but looking at the numbers it did. There were only a couple of real steep climbs. Maybe it’s just that I’ve seen enough of them now that they don’t scare me as much. 😊



Nothing too exciting on speed on this route, but I did all 102 miles of it at an average speed of 15 mph, not bad considering how tired these legs are.



I’m debating tomorrow, I may ride the short loop, or I may take the day off. I’m happy with my milage and I would like to see a little bit of Fredericksburg before I leave. Also, I hear there is a good massage shop in town and a 2-hour rub down sounds like near heaven at this point. I’ll decide in the morning.

Part of the Texas Hellweek 2001 collection.

Mar 15, 2001 ∞

Hellweek, Day 6 - The Leakey Death Ride

I SURVIVED THE DEATH RIDE!

Before I get into the details of the death ride, let me give you where we are, day 6 of Hellweek:

• You wake up and before you even get out of bed, your quads hurt.
• Your ass hurts before you even get on your saddle and Chamois Butt’r is your best friend.
• You’ve already rode 440 miles and spent over a full day on your bike.
• You wonder if your Advil is expired or something, doesn’t seem to do anything.
• You’re “working” at eating enough at night to keep you fueled up.
• You’ve eaten more bananas than a medium sized family of apes.
• Mars bar? Donut? Sugary thing with Peanuts? Who cares! It’s got calories!

These pictures pretty much wrap up what the death ride is all about (thanks to Don for taking these!)…

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The death ride took a little over 7 hours to finish and totaled 109 miles. It’s our only “away” ride. We leave Fredericksburg at about 7:00 am and drive our bikes down to Bandara and leave from there. The climbs on this ride are hard to really convey in text, they are steep and they go on for as long as you can see. You don’t want to look up since you may just want to stop. You pass other riders walking there bikes up.

Here is the ride map.



There are 6 major climbs to the death ride. The first is the most arduous, it’s dead straight and you can see the entire beast as you begin to climb it’s nearly 1,000 feet without any break. The first three are all bundled together, then you get three more on the back. The worst is when your 100 miles into the ride and ready to collapse, and there is the last climb staring at you.



Who care’s about average speed on this ride, it’s dead on those climbs. I can tell you that you can climb standing at under 6 mph for about 10 minutes straight with your heart pounding at over 90% max, it hurts, but it can be done. I also set a new personal record for speed, hitting 50 mph on the descents. After one 47 mph descent I pulled over and found my newly rebuilt wheel had 6 “wiggly” loose spokes! WHOA! I deserve that nickname they gave me, Lucky. A little roadside truing of the wheel and I was off again.



I decided to skip the heart rate chart today and instead show you an exertion chart. This chart shows you my “typical” training program on the left, and you can see the exertion factor that Hellweek demands. Yikes!



I made it! The death ride is the hardest and longest ride of Hellweek, and I successfully pulled it off. Only two more days left.

Part of the Texas Hellweek 2001 collection.

Mar 12, 2001 ∞

Hellweek, Day 3 - Southern Comfort

We had a re-route on the beginning of today’s ride since one of the bridges was flooded, this cut a couple miles off of the route so “only” came in at 96.6 miles today. Was a good ride, however the wind seemed to be always in front of me. One of the riders got hit by a truck, he’s gonna be okay but had to have an ambulance come and take him out. His name is Bill from Oklahoma City if I remember right. (Update on Bill, found out at dinner that they ended up taking him out by helicopter to San Antonio to be worked on. He fractured a vertebrae, otherwise known as breaking your neck. He’ll be okay, but that’s a tough one).

I think I finally got my eating right. Day 1 I ate 1,100 calories during the ride and was starving at the end. Yesterday I bonked at 80 miles and ended up eating 1,300 calories and starving. Today I ate 2,000 calories during the ride and felt much, much stronger during the ride. Think I’m figuring out how to fuel these centuries in a row.

Onto the ride, here’s the map. Todays is more impressive, looks like we went further. The default path was to go to highway 16 and then go up to Frederickburg, but that road has too many cars going too fast, so I backed up and went up 2093 back into town.



The altitude profile wasn’t as bad as yesterday, still had some serious climbing and that climbing was into the wind, adding insult to injury.



Had some nice fast runs today. When we climbed out of the valley had about 10 miles on flats. I can’t tell you how cool it feels when you’re five hours into your ride and you can still hammer out at 25 miles an hour for a good while (of course, the wind at your back, shhh!)



Average heart rate today was 119, lowest of all three days. Makes sense since we had less vertical climbing. As well, the body just gets tired.



Tomorrow is Fred’s Ride. Semper Fi! 😊

Part of the Texas Hellweek 2001 collection.