Double Fun

I was remiss in not reporting my impressions of the Eastern Sierra Double Century, a Planet Ultra product. It was like riding a hard century. Then an easy one, with lunch in between. All of this with generally beautiful scenery throughout, something that the Mammoth area pretty much guarantees. Describing any double century as "easy" would be a little weird, since my butt hurt for about 130 miles of it. Luckily, the pain didn't get any worse after about mile 90, although it worried me. I used Descente Strata shorts and lots of Assos chamois creme and still got some chafing. I think bibs would have been better, since the chafing was not really in the crotch so much as toward the outer edge of the chamois in the back. I've now invested in the bib version of these shorts to minimize chafing by limiting movement of the chamois relative to my body.

The link in the first line of this blog entry points to a complete description of the ride, so I'll assume the reader knows how to use this interweb thingie and I'll just give some impressions:

• $80 is a lot of money for a ride. On the other hand, a $40 century isn't considered unreasonable these days and it's not like there's any economy of scale. Planet Ultra is clearly a business, and that has its pluses and minuses.
• The rest stops (known as "checkpoints" in planet ultra lingo) were well stocked with provisions and workers. The food I needed to carry at the start was enough calories to get me to the first rest stop at around the 30 mile mark. Lunch at Mono Lake was sumptuous and well placed at the 110 mile mark. This ride featured "Bonkbreaker" energy bars - well cubes really they are very compact and tasty.
• Regarding shorts, since I am posting this way after the fact I can now report that I've found the right ones for me. As you probably know this varies from person to person, but for me it's the Pearl Izumi's with the Pro 3D pad in bib form from now on, or until PI changes the design (sigh!). Just FYI the most experienced riders tend to use use Assos.
• I hadn't ridden over 90 miles on a single day for the previous six months. My training averaged about fourteen hours per week, with a lot of interval work. I did make a point of doing two 90 mile rides with 10,000' of climbing at altitude in the month prior to the event though. My wife says Lon Haldemann told her that "If you can go hard, you can go long" so do yourself a favor and include some high-intensity work while training.