Calvin's Challenge 2015

The 2015 riding season is finally getting started! The weather for the first weekend in May is looking great, so I decided to try Calvin's Challenge for the second time. For those not familiar with Calvin's, it's a 12 hour race that starts at 7:00AM and ends at 7:00PM. The goal of the race is to get in as many miles as you can during the 12 hours. In my 2013 Calvin's I only managed 188.5 miles, which was a little short of my 200 mile goal. This year the weather guessguys say the winds should peak at 8mph around 3 in the afternoon before it slows back down to 3mph, with a low wind of 0mph early in the morning. Very un-Calvin like weather. Last year they had constant 25mph winds, the year before it was 17mph winds, and that's not counting the high gusts on top of the steady wind..

Mistakes from my previous Calvin's
Looking at my last attempt, I decided the largest factor for not hitting my goal was all the off bike time, It looked like I totaled around 30 - 45 minutes off the bike during the 12 hour race time.  I remember last time I needed to get supplies from my truck in the middle of the race. Plus I pushed too hard on the first hundred miles and needed an extended break after the first two 50 mile loops. My biggest problem was simply not being physically prepared for the race, which is again an issue this time around.

Goal:
Just like the last time, I decided upon 200 miles for the 12 hour race. I've ridden plenty of centuries under 6 hours, so surely I can do a double century under 12 hours! I only needed an average speed of 16.7MPH (including stop times), seems easy enough. My thoughts on making the goal, was to watch the power meter, trying not to go over 150 watts during the flat areas and trying to gear down to only 200 watts during the climbs. With those power goals I figured I should be able to ride the whole 12 hours with more then enough speed for 200 miles.

The first 50.5 mile loop:
Calvin's is a mass start race that starts in front of the local High school. There are around 200 riders with very little wind and temps in the high 40's. The race started smoothly at 7:00PM sharp. During the first 5 miles it was cold enough for my hands to feel frozen, the weather quickly warmed by 15 miles and my hands were no longer frozen. My recumbent bike is heavier and more aero then most upright bikes, so I would fly by groups of riders going down hill. Then, since I was limiting my power to 200 watts during climbs, the group would catch me on the next climb. This back and forth between rolling hills went on for the first 18 or so miles. By then the groups had settled, some behind and some in front of me.

My speed dropped from 18.2 down to 17.2 on my first bathroom break, even though it was only 4 minutes long. Finishing the loop, I managed to bring my average back up to 17.6mph. I stopped at the start/finish line taking another bathroom break, swapping out water bottles and took off the jacket, costing me a total of another 6 minutes.

The second 50.5 mile loop:
Now that the first loop is completed, the riders are much more spread out, I'm mostly alone, not seeing that many other riders. This loop was fairly uneventful. with the average speed staying around 17.6, more then enough speed to hit the 200 mile goal.

At the start/finish line I took a potty break, changed out the water bottles, put on my arm and leg coolers, and put some sun screen on my face.  This was the longest break costing me 9 minutes of precious time.

The third 50.5 mile loop:
On this ride I am trying an all liquid diet, where I mix a performance mix powder in my water bottles, instead of using solid power bars. At the start of this loop, my stomach started to feel a  bit knotted up, so I slowly ate a single power bar throughout this loop. I never had any other stomach problems, so I consider the liquid diet a success.

The wind starting picking up around 2:30 as predicted by the weatherguys, but it seemed to be in low double digits, a little faster then predicted, but not enough to complain too much. I passed a lot of riders that seemed very affected by the head wind, one yelled jokily, "Does it feel like a challenge yet?" Indeed, it was starting to.

My left foot had been bothering me slightly throughout the ride, first with toe numbness, then with some sharp pain at the ball of my foot. Now the pain was starting to get severe. It felt like someone was stabbing a needle through the bottom of my foot. At first I tried to simply loosen the shoe straps a little. This worked for a couple of moments. I then tried to ignore and power through the pain as it got worse. Big mistake, the pain was suddenly very severe causing me to cry out. I then unhooked my foot from the pedal and tried one legged cycling, almost instant relief.

I'm still 75 miles short of my goal, there's no way I could make it with only one legged cycling. Next I tried pushing with my left foot unclipped from the pedal. This seemed to work, somewhat, there was still pain, just not as severe. I then clipped in the foot again, within minutes the severe pain was back. This is just not working! I loosened the shoe straps a little more, then started concentrating on pushing more with my right leg.

At this point I was really feeling low, and was failing to remember why I was even attempting this challenge. I definitely hadn't prepared myself properly for this ride, the most miles I've ridden in a week so far this year was a little over 100 with my longest ride at 62 miles. At this time, I pretty much decided 150 miles would be plenty for today. It didn't seem conceivable to go on another 50 miles, after this loop.

Thankfully, the foot pain was easing off as long as I concentrated at using the other leg. The same leg with the knee problems that caused me to skip most of the March and early April training rides. The knee seems to be holding great, plus the foot pain is almost gone, so I think I've found a workable solution.

At the start/finish line I took the usual refill break, swapping out water bottles, plus splashing more sun screen on my face. Even though I wasn't feeling great, the off-bike time was only 5 minutes! My average speed was down to 17.1mph

The 7 mile loops:
Down to the last few hours of the ride. At this point we ride a different loop that is only 7 miles long. I wasn't feeling great, but I really wanted to hit that 200 mile goal! So I pushed on, even though 7x 7 mile loops seemed like an awful lot of loops. The first three to four miles of the new loop had head winds while the last three were tailwinds. The wind wasn't very strong, but it did slow me down. My average speed dropped to 17.0 almost right away, not a good sign. Halfway through the first 7 mile loop, the speed dropped to 16.9mph, this was looking bad. I was starting to fear that my speed would drop by a tenth every loop. I knew that if it dropped below 16.7 that I wouldn't make the 200 mile goal, this was getting close.

At the start of the second loop the average speed went back up to 17.0, nice! by the middle of the loop after facing the headwinds again, it dropped back down to 16.9. My foot was feeling much better, I had even forgot it was hurting and was starting to enjoy the ride.

I took a break after the 6th loop to refill the water bottle, costing me 2 more minutes. by then the average speed was holding at 17.0, even after the last break.

The finish line:
Finally! 200 miles under 12 hours! At the end of the 7th loop I was officially over 200 miles. I even had enough time to put on 5 additional miles of an 8th loop. The official distance calculated at: three x 50.5 mile loops plus 7 x7 mile loops plus 5 miles for a total of: 205.5 miles.

Awards:
The two top overall awards were dominated by recumbent bikes built by Cruzbikes.

Larry Oslund received the overall male distance award at 264 miles, barely beating Ben Tomblin at 263 miles, also on a Cruzbike.

Maria Parker received the overall female distance award at 257 miles which is a new record for Calvin's.

I'll put down some more results, once they are posted. I know there was a teenage gal with 188 miles, plus some 70 plus year olds that had some great mileage.

It was great meeting with the other recumbent racers afterwards, even though it was while waiting an extra hour and a half until the awards ceremony started. It was something else to see all the participants and how many miles they had accomplished.


Great race:
Kudos again to the sponsors, this was a great ride, even with my low point in the middle, I'm sure I'll do this one again.

Future goals:
Now that I have a double century under 12 hours, I'll need to concentrate on getting a century under 5 hours.



This is a link to my results on Strava:

This is a link to my results on Garmin: