My Near Death Experience or the STP (Seattle to Portalnd) Bike Ride

Three years ago my wife got intrigued with the idea of riding the STP (Seattle to Portland) bike ride.  For those not familiar with STP it’s a 200 mile bike ride that has 9,500 riders each year.  (The ride is limited to 9,500 or they would have more.) She began to train but didn’t have enough time to be fully ready to ride the 200 miles on her own.  I ended up riding along in the “support car” we had and ”shared” some of the miles  so she didn’t overdo it.  She rode the majority of the miles which I was very proud of (I only did about one third) and I walked away with an urge to do the ride on my own the next year.

Unfortunately, the next two years we got busy playing soccer in the Spring (local recreational co-ed league) and didn’t start training in time to do the ride.  We played soccer this year too but we were committed to riding as we had agreed to meet our friend John Marshall and his wife and do some of the ride with them.

We planned on beginning to train about 8 weeks out from STP but our soccer season ran a little longer this year (We won the championship!) and then my wife’s mother became very ill and sadly passed away.  Combine those things with a vacation to the Oregon Coast that had been planned months in advance and I realized we were in big touble when it was July 1 with no training started.
 
Amanda wisely bowed out saying she was too emotionally and physically drained to train hard at that time and she would drive our “support car”.  Luckily I was able to talk her boss into doing the ride with me so I’d have someone with experience to help me train and to advise me on the actual event.  We started doing roughly 15 miles a day for the first week and then did 40 mile and 35 mile rides on the weekend.  The next week we did 15-18 miles each morning except for Friday which we cut down to about 10.  (Just getting our butts in the saddle and burning off the lactic acids).  

It was just 12 days from not being on the bike at all to heading to STP, I admit it I was a bit nervous.  I knew I was stretching things to finish the entire ride so the minimum goal was 100 miles.  I’d never ridden more than 42 miles at a time so that seemed a reasonable goal.  I secretly hoped to get a full 100 miles in on day one and do another 30-50 miles the next day but it would depend on how I felt.

We decided to join the race “in progress” rather than going to the official start as this would save us time and we would ride an equal number of miles anyway.  The big bonus was that our drivers would get to sleep in rather than getting up and driving us to the launch point.  Unfortunately we woke up a bit late and didn’t get on the bikes until 7am but at least it was already warm by that time. 

Here is a rough sketch of how things went:

Day 1

• The first 20+ miles of the ride was a hoot!  Riding by Lake Washington and watching the locals and other riders was a lot of fun.  Plus, the ride around the lake is just beautiful - I’d love to be able to ride that stretch of road everyday. 
• At about 30 miles It wasn’t as much fun as the first part had been - but I was still enjoying myself. 
• At 50 miles I was getting tired and hungry - we made a food and bathroom stop and got back on the bikes. 
• Between 50 to 70 miles the ride started to become work.  A big part of that was the heat and sun (I heard it got to 85-90 F but don’t know sure) and to make matters worse we had forgotten sunscreen!
• At mile 86 we stopped at a water station and finally had the bright idea to ask the first aid tent if they had sunscreen, they did!  It seem likely the damage was already done but I suppose it kept our sunburns from getting too much worse.  We were also having a rough time with sore feet and butts by then which meant a few minutes off of the bikes was a welcome thing.  (Think about it, you have most of your body weight on just a few small places (pedals and seat) so eventually they will hurt.)
• By the time I got to the century mark at about 2:45 pm I thought I might die.  I hadn’t kept enough food in me over the past 50 miles, I was sunburned and I was feeling the effects of being dehydrated.  (The interesting thing is you don’t realize how weak you are becoming while you are on the bike but when you try to get off the bike and walk it becomes very clear, very quick.)  I downed a bunch of water, drank some gatorade and slammed a GU pack (Think of drinking really thick syrup) before getting back on the bike.  This time the wife joined us as we had a spare bike and another person who could drive allowing her to do a few miles with us. 

• We did another 20-25 miles and I felt much better during that time period than I had during the 15 miles prior to the century mark.  The only real painful part was a serious hill (to me) that we hit at about mile 113.  I’m guessing it was 5-6% grade and 3/4 of a mile long.  At that point in the day it felt like a category 1 hill from the Pyranese ala the Tour de France.  In truth the Tour riders wouldn’t even slow down for a small hill like that but I’m trying not to think about that.
• Somewhere after 120 miles we decided to call it a day and drove down to Portland to spend the night since there weren’t any hotel rooms available nearby.

Back in Porland I was feeling very sunburned and dehydrated, in other words my evening wasn’t much fun.  After I downed a lot of water we went to a steak house for dinner and I slowly began to feel better.  By the time we got done eating and talking it was about 10 pm and I was ready to head for bed.  We went back to the hotel and crashed about 11:00 or so.  I fell asleep wondering if I’d feel up to riding at all the next day.
 

Day 2

• We slept so hard that night that we didn’t wake up until 9:30 am - aparently having a wake up call would have been a good idea.  The good news was we felt good - yes, even me.   I was nervous about how my butt and feet would feel on the bike but I was sure I could do another 20-30 anyway.  The bad news was we had a mixup with our support driver who had gone to visit a friend the night before.  (We needed someone else to drive as Amanda was hoping to ride into Portland with us.)  Long story short by the time we were heading out of town to get back on the route it was 11:30 am and getting hot again.  We ended up stopping about 15-20 miles out and riding into Portland from there.
• Once we got on the bike I was amazed at how good I felt - I was ready to ride another 50-80!  Unfortunately it was already late and we had a 4 hour drive after we finished riding so that wasn’t an option.  

• We rode into the Finish area by Lloyd Center with Amanda leading the way followed by Lonnie and then me.  We had a great time relaxing, listening to the musicical group playing and just looking around at the booths.  It’s a bit of a pary that they have set up and everyone was having a good time.

The end result was that we rode 140ish miles which I suppose wasn’t too bad.  I felt good about the 120 in a day and that I didn’t die of heat stroke.  The plan is to start training earlier next year so that we can finish the entire 200 mile ride.

Now that I’m back home I have decided to keep riding (15 miles this morning) since it’s good exercise.  To keep up my motivation I’m going to look around for a Century Ride (100 miles) that is in the Northwest I can fit into my schedule.