Scoggins Valley Triathlon Report

First off, let me let the cat out of the bag. I made a goal earlier to beat last year's time by 10 minutes. I did that and more. Heck yeah!

I did not do much specific preparation for this triathlon. Well, I have been riding quite a bit, but I have done little to prepare for a triathlon other than my swim class which ended almost two weeks ago. I went on one run last week just to see what it felt like to run after not doing any running for 2 months. That went fairly well as reported previously in the blog. So with the exception of just a bit of pre-race jitters the night before the race I didn't worry about anything.

I arrived at about 6:30 AM at Hagg Lake to pick up my race packet and do this little event. I estimate that there were about 150 people that did the sprint distance. The sprint distance tri includes a half mile open water swim, a 12.5 mile bike and a 5k run. Really those distances should be no biggie. This course is a slower because bike and run are done on a fairly hilly road. During the bike the constant ossilation of the road makes it tough to get into any sort of rhythm that one would expect to do in a time trial for most triathlons. The run has maybe about 3/4 of a mile that is on flat the rest of the time you either climbing or descending a hill. For this reason, last year I was not too terribly disappointed in my race. Afterall, I had just taken the bar exam and was still getting back in shape. This year, despite my non-specific preparation I wanted the race to be much better.

My goal was to do the swim inbetween 16 and 17 minutes. That didn't happen. I finished in 17:57. I could not seem to swim in a straight line and then with about 100 yards to go I started doing the ol' open water freak out and I had to flip on my back. I was hyperventilating. I had been pushing it too hard and was having a hard time getting a good breath. I really don't have a good reason why it was an issue. I swim 1500 yards or more every swim class. It is mental weakness, pure and simple. I need to work on that. A lot more time in the pool is going to have to happen prior to next April's Half Ironman in Oceanside.

Anyway after finally getting to the shore I was actually able to run up the long carpeted length (about 150 yards uphill) to where the bikes were waiting. Last year I was barely able to walk up the hill. I also went sockless and without gloves. Last year I took the trouble to do both. My T1 time was almost 90 seconds faster this year.

Once on the bike I had a hard time getting into a groove. I mean I passed lots of folks out there, with only a couple of people passing me, but my legs were tight. I stretched prior to the swim and took my normal anti-cramping pills, SportLegs, but something was off. The last two little hills before the end I had significant calf cramping issues. I could not put any power into those climbs. I just sort of nursed myself back in. I strongly considered packing it in at that point. I thought that since I was already cramping up that there would be little chance that I would be able to complete the run without cramping up as well, especially with those stupid hills. Nevertheless, I decided to keep going. I mean I was 2/3 done why stop now?

The run began ugly. I was passed by a several people immediately as I tried to maintain a decent pace while staving off a full on revolt by my left calf. After dealing with this discomfort for about a mile I started feeling better--better as in, the left calf wasn't on a hair trigger to developing rigur mortis. At the turnaround I was doing better. When I got to the point where I started running up the two hills that brought me so much pain on the bike due to the cramping I was doing great. I started running a bit fast, cheered on by the fact that would more than make my goal if I kept up the pace. Near the top of the last hill prior to going down the last 100 yards or so into the parking lot and finish a guy passed me at a pretty good clip. He was going faster than I could have gone up that hill and I was a bit disappointed to be passed one more time so close to the finish. But was we crested the top of the hill it seemed like he just maintained the same speed. I knew that I could speed up with gravity now my ally. And I did. I sprinted to the finish and passed him with about 25 yards to go and beat him by 2 seconds. Yeah! You have to finish strong!

My time this year was 1:27:36. Last year I finished the race in 1:40:22. Total time reduction was 12:46 over last year! I really feel that I owe a significant part of the dip in time to a drop in weight. Less weight means obviously that there is less of me to hual up on the climbs whether I am running or riding. Of course, having the swim class for the past 7 or 8 months helped to drop four and a half minutes from my time.

My placement was 40th out of 144 racers. Last year I was 97th out of 172. In my age group I was 7th out of 13. Last year, had I raced in my age division instead of Clydesdales, I would have been 9th out of 11. It is a pretty competitive age group. I would say that this is a pretty freaking good amount of improvement. Overall I am very pleased. Thankfully, I don't feel like I have topped out. There is still room for a couple minutes of improvement even if I just maintained my current fitness.

Below is a snip of this year's result:


Here is last year's result:

Scoggins Valley Triathlon Results

I know pretty much where I stand but final results haven't been posted so I will update this post when I know more. Hopefully tomorrow. But I will say that I am mostly pleased.

Don't Piss Off the Help / Half Fast Velo Cross Practice

Tonight I was able to switch shifts with someone else at work so that I could finally go to one of Brianero's cross practices with his Half Fast Velo comrades. About 10 minutes before I was going to get ready to go and while I was finishing up the last bike build I was going to do for the day some moron came in wanting his tube replaced in his tire. He was still dressed to the nines in his T-Mobile Team kit even though he came in with his wife and kid. He looked like an older Tom Cruise, but a little taller and with just a bit of a gut. His hair sort of looked like this...and for some reason this guy has rubbed me the wrong way the couple of times that he has come in. He looks like a dork and dresses like a dork and apparently acts like one.

He must have gotten a flat while riding and then called his wife to come get him and then they all made the trek to the shop so that he could get his precious tire fixed and then continue riding.

I didn't want to mess with it. And I told him so. I was short on time and we don't always have time to drop what we are doing in the shop to help everyone out. For ways to get help see the following article. This guy was an ass. I told him that I would be happy to let him use our tools so he could change his own flat. After all, when one has a full Dura Ace carbon bike, one would assume that he could do so. But he said that he "preferred not to do it himself." He said that it shouldn't take very long to do it, so surely we could just help him out really quick. I said something to the effect that his man-card might have to have a corner cut off it he needed someone else to change the tube for him. I said this in jest and chuckled as I said it. I figured that if I was going to have to change the blasted tube I should get to have some fun while doing it. Then he said something about who was the one getting has hands dirty for who--basically insinuating that I was his bitch. Sorry for the language here, but I am getting a little worked up just thinking about this guy. I was about to say no, but I could tell that Rashelle--who is the assistant manager now--would have done it herself just to be rid of the guy. So rather than have her do it, I told the guy if he would take off his rear wheel and set it aside I would do it for him before I left. He just sort of mumbled something and walked off without doing anything and left the wheel in the bike for me to take off.

Fine. I changed the tube. It took me 3 minutes. It cost him 15 bucks. But the adjustment that I made to his seatpost--lowering it about 5 millimeters while I had it back in the shop--free. Turning his bars askew about 1 to 2 degrees from off center--free. I saw him ride off knowing that the time it would take that jerk to fix his bike, centering the handlebars and to figure out what the proper height was for his saddle (if he ever notices at all), would be at least as much time as I spent changing his blasted tube. He rode off without noticing what was done. At least not yet.

Lesson: Don't mess with those that do service for you. Being a jerk may cost you more than just money. This was just my version of spitting in the food.

Sure I can be a jerk, too. Just don't screw with me when I am grumpy (due to still waiting to hear back about a couple of jobs) and feeling stressed out. I am cool as a cucumber to everyone I deal with at the shop if they are just civil. Mess with me and it is sure to cost you, possibly in some very passive aggressive and juvenile way, but it will cost you nonetheless.


NOW ON TO A MORE UPLIFTING SUBJECT: CYCLOCROSS!!!!

As mentioned above I went out and practiced with some of the guys from the Half Fast Velo team. Of the guys on the team, I had only known Brianero previously, although I recognized a couple of guys from cross races in past years. Brianero introduced me to all of them a couple of times although I am really bad with names. I think I remember 3 names out of the 8 or 9 people that were there.

We rode in Custer Park. It a nice little park where the people apparently don't mind a bunch of freaks on bikes tearing around all over the place, criss-crossing over the grassy slopes, and dismounting and running over the barriers while they have soccer practice or are relaxing on blankets making out. The course was pretty fun, a good balance of straight aways with twist and turns and off-camber stuff.

We did a warm up lap, then two fast laps and took a break, then 5 laps and a break, and then most did another two laps. I only did one last lap because I thought I was going to pass out. I had no water (left my water at the shop) and I needed some bad. I was a little light headed. So I wussed out. I didn't feel too bad about it though. Others passed on the last couple of laps entirely or also bailed before the last one like I did. During the fast laps I was last. Part of it was that I was confused about which way to go and also I just wasn't warmed up. My legs just felt like crap and I wasn't breathing well. During the 5 lap sequence I was feeling pretty good. I didn't go all out and sort of hung with a couple of guys. I was at the back but there was a guy or two or three behind me. It was obvious that on straight aways I suffer more than some. On the twisty stuff I could gain some ground back. At least there is something I am moderately good at--the technical stuff I could hold my own.

A couple of things were evident after tonight riding:

Brianero is fast. At least once he just zipped by me like I was standing still. At least I know what Master A's are like now.

I am stronger than I was last year. I at least sort of hung in there with some of the B's and Master B guys. I don't know if any of them race C's or Master C's like me.

I really enjoyed riding with these guys even though I didn't get to spend much time talking. It would be nice to be a part of a team.

I am going to try and continue to make it out to their practices for the next couple of weeks. They do two of these per week and they mix the course up each time. I will try to make it to one of them each week.

Anyway, thanks for the invite Brianero, I had a blast.

Neuvation Noise Final Update

I lubed/greased the axle/spindle thingy that the freehub body revolves around. The noise is totally gone. I will keep track of how many miles it takes for it to return.

Silence is nice.

Wish I was there...

Above is a pic of Brianero (blue and orange jersey) at last weekend's Kruger's Kermesse taken by Sue Hanna. Looked like a lot of fun. Not sure if it was or not...but it looked great. By the way have you ever seen a rider so intensely gazing at another competitor's rear end? And does anyone else think that he must have taken a spill judging by the angle that his right shifter is sitting at?

Also, I was sent a t-shirt from CycleOps for doing some online training. It reads "The POWER of Argyle" on the front. I like it. Good thing I lost weight or it wouldn't fit. Yea for Swag! But I never thought much before about argyle's power. I mean usually I reserved argyle for socks and sweaters, but whatever...If a pro team can rock the argyle it must be cool, or something like that.

Husbands, if you want you wives to appreciate you take a hit and go see Mama Mia. Sure it was dumb and my man-card was almost ripped in half, but now Bridget is in a great mood. Since she is 8 1/2 months pregnant, her being in a good mood is a really good thing.

Neuvation Noise Update

John at Neuvation said that all that should be needed to be done to silence the noise is to relube the cassette body. I will do that today or tomorrow and see what happens. I like the wheels, and I would also like there to be minimal maintenence. If this is a frequent operation I can honestly say that this is going to be a problem for me. It needs to go more than 250 miles between lube jobs if that is what the noise issue solution is.

Realizing I have Two Personalities and Neuvation Wheel Update

I thought I worked earlier than I was actually scheduled so I went out and rode from work for a couple of hours. I rode areas I have never ridden before and it was interesting. I was only going to ride for maybe 90 minutes or so but I found that I wound up pushing the point at which I was going to turn around out further and further. I was originally just going to ride 20 miles. I planned on turning around at the 10 mile mark and then riding back to the shop so that I would have time to eat and work on my bike a bit. It was making noises and I had thought it was my bottom bracket or something. It wasn't but it was instead the rear wheel, which I will get to in a bit.

Anyway, At the 10 mile mark I was going pretty good and I thought I would just go further. This sort of thing often happens to me on a solo out-n-back ride. I feel pretty good and so I just keep going. I have decided that it is like I have two different riders in me on these out and back solo rides. The First Half Guy (FHG) and Second Half Guy (SHG) don't really like each other. FHG gets to place the order and then Second Half Guy has to pay the bill. That happened last Tuesday for sure in Central Oregon on the 69 mile ride. FHG went out fast and rode hard to the top of Mckenzie Hwy, leaving very little "capital" for SHG to use to get back to home. In fact, SHG suffered and barely made it back because he was paying for the fun that FHG had without him putting any capital (food) back into the energy account. That is often the case, FHG uses up more his fair share of the energy available and so SHG suffers. I am pretty sure that FHG likes to make SHG suffer. I strongly suspect that FHG goes longer than he should just to piss off SHG. I guess he thinks it will be good to make SHG suffer for some reason. Something about getting stronger.

It may be weird to write as if there are these two other individuals in me. But when I am riding by myself I am often wonder if I am riding too far, if I will be able to make it back in time, will I have enough energy to make it back, etc. I often push it because I want to be a better, stronger ride. I realize that I may at some point or points bemoan the fact that I rode so far away from home, but I often just figure that the suffering will be good for me. It is sort of masochistic, that a little bit of masochism is a good thing in this regard.

Well enough randomness.

The Neuvation R28 SL5 wheelset has hit a serious snag. The internals of the rear hub creak really bad. I am a pedal masher and I wonder if I am just too strong for them (that would be cool--too strong for a bike part instead of too fat). Spinning at a high cadence is not something that I like to do. Anyway it may be possible that I am just too much of a masher for these wheels. Either that or the rear hub is crap. Or maybe a bit of both. I gotta email them Monday to see what the solution is. I have only had them for a little more than 2 weeks I think. They have 250 miles on them or so. They should hold up better than this, obviously. I put a different rear wheel in and the sound went away. It sounds like the hub is going to give way. It is most evident when I am climbing or generally just giving it some significant power. I noticed that when the wheel was replaced with another wheel (a Cane Creek Strados) that there was quite a bit less flex in addition to a quieter bike. So even disregarding the creak issue, perhaps these wheels are not more me. Anyway, I am a bit disappointed in the wheels. But, perhaps I am nuts but I feel a certain amount of pride that I can trash the hub so quickly. Maybe I am just a hammer. Maybe I am going to have to get myself some Mavic R-Sys wheels after all...

DTP Strikes Again

Today the weather was beautiful--sunny with a high in the upper 70's. Perfect. But, I was seriously lacking any motivation to ride. Weird. The family and went out and did some stuff and that was fun and it allowed me to put off riding in a guilt-free way. But around 1:30 or so as we were on our way back from shopping for kids clothes I knew that I was out of excuses, but I really was sick of riding solo after the long ride on Tuesday, sooo....after thinking....and running through my options several times, I called DTP. I don't mind hanging with DTP. The conversation is often funny and his suffering while riding is good for his soul, and mine too really. In his current state he is a constant warning not to slack off because the road to Slowville is really no further than about 6 months away. At least that is about how long it took him to get there after not riding all last fall/winter.

Anyway, I rationalized that a ride with DTP would be good because it would make for decent recovery ride after riding hard Tuesday and running hard yesterday. My HR would remain on the low side of things if I allowed DTP to set the pace and I figured that at that pace we could easily ride for a couple of hours or more. He wouldn't get too tanked too fast and I could ride near him, talk, and keep my mind busy with things at a time when at the time I wasn't feeling like getting out there. Yeah, that would work I thought.

I call DTP. Yep, he is up for a ride. Yep, his road bike is in good shape (because this seems to be a constant issue) and he says he will be at my house shortly. I felt bad because I made him come to my house and I wasn't even close to ready when he showed. I was still messing with responding to email from all the stuff I was selling on the OBRA email list. As an aside, it is amazing how fast a person can sell stuff there. No overhead like Ebay and everyone is local. Love it. Anyway, I think I left my helmet in Black Butte so I had to dig out the spare which was not fitting to my head, and then get dressed....blah blah blah. I it took awhile and as a make up I gave made him some Clif Shot Electrolyte drink. DTP was patient and we talked while I got my stuff together.

The ride starts and we head down Cornell and after a bit we took a right at 113th. That is a short road, but it has a pretty darn good hill. We rode it and DTP never complained. Nice. Normally, he would be whining about something, but everything was good. We continued to Thompson and then headed up towards Skyline where I figured we would ride over to Germantown Road and then take a left and meander around for awhile. I told DTP to let me know if I was going to slow or too fast as I led the way up Thompson. We had some good conversation and though he was often a bit winded, he still was in a good mood--no complaining. I felt great and relaxed. I was enjoying the ride and the weather a total turnaround from how I started the ride. Which meant that something was bound to happen to screw everything up.

Once we arrived at Skyline we stopped briefly for some water and then started up again. We were going at a pretty good clip when as we neared the Skyline cemetery I heard some serious complaining...from his bike. There was some serious racket going on and I could see DTP had slowed. Somehow DTP dropped his chain to the outside of the crankarm. When he tried to get it back on via a downshift and some pedalling there was more racket and then silence. His chain was gone. He completely lost a link somewhere on the road trying to perform this operation. I didn't have a master link (something I will remember to have on me from now on) and neither did he. Luckily we were at a point in the ride where we could coast almost all the way back home. He only had to walk about a 1/4 mile. Total mileage for the ride: 8.5 miles. Totally frustrating really. I had finally gotten my butt out the door and gotten into the ride when his bike DNF'd. This has happened a lot lately when riding with him. Often it is the bike--either he can't shift, or the crankarm comes loose, or some other problem. Stupid stuff really. If he rode much he would have these issues ironed out before the next ride. But my theory is that becuase there is such a lag inbetween rides he forgets that there ever was any issues. Either that or he can't tell when something is wrong before his bike slaps him upside the head so to speak and quits on him. Because I am aware of this I asked him about his bike's condition. But because he has a short term memory he didn't remember there was an issue. He had serious front derailleur problems the last time we rode on the road together months ago. He never fixed it.

Maybe I wanted to ride with DTP so that I could get out of riding. Odds are about 2 in 3 that something significant will happen to shorten the ride when riding with him this year. Maybe riding with DTP is a guilt-free way for me to wuss out on a ride...doubt it, but it is possible I suppose. Oh well.

Stupefying. Still, those 8 miles or so were pretty fun. I just wish we could have at least tripled that total.

Running? Do I have to?

Today I went for a short run. I signed up for the Scoggins Valley Tri last night which is about 9 days away now. But only the sprint distance so that I can compare myself to last year where I also did the sprint. I haven't run since, well...according to my workout journal on the side bar I have not run since June 21. Sweet, nothing like a 2 month layoff to get you in shape for the most import leg of the race.

Still, I have dropped weight and I have been riding a bunch since then. Plus my swimming times have improved. Bottom line: I am in better shape and running a 5k shouldn't be a big deal. Still, it would suck to be in better shape and yet still slower than my fatter self was last year. So I decided to head out this morning and do a heat check. Temp reading: Medium Hot. I feel the need to state that this is only in comparison to myself and not to everyone else. There are lots of folks much faster than I am, so I am not thinking that I am going to win or place or anything like that. I am only competing with myself here.

Anyway, I ran from the house to the Catlin Gable track figuring on running 2.5 miles there. I decided to time my mile splits. The first one I ran at 8:15, the second one 8:06 and then I did the last 1/2 mile in 3:56. So I ran 2.5 miles in 20:17. Not too shabby. This is better than I could have done pre-Vikingman. I then ran back to the house having run a total of about 3.7 miles. Yeah, that will do. I don't know if I will run again before Scoggins, maybe a bit early next week or over the weekend. Whatever, I will be fine.

It is nice to do this wussy triathlon. I am not stressing. The distances are so short after doing the half ironman that it is laughable. I feel like I could just glide, bunnyhop and skip through the thing and have a gay old time (as in having a fun time "gay"...geesh). Not that I have any expectation of winning or that I won't suffer for 90 minutes or so. Those that win at this distance will be running 6 minute miles or something so I have no delusions of grandeur. I just know that I won't drown, I won't bonk, and I won't cramp up. I also won't be losing any sleep over it unlike every other triathlon I have ever done. That is a nice feeling.

Creampuff? Maybe not so much

Whatever crap I was smoking last week when I suddenly wanted to do a long distance mtb race has passed. Realty came back home. Better now than mid race at the Creampuff.

This weekend the family and I went to Black Butte Ranch. Bridget's family has a home there and it makes for a nice get-away. My thought was to go on my first 100 mile ride and see how it went. If it went well, I would go for an admittedly much more difficult endeavor--the Cascade Creampuff 100.

Well, my planned day to go was Monday. With thunderstorms all day I didn't get to go. I was bummed. Today, the weather was pretty good in the morning so I went out. I knew I would not have time to ride 100 miles, but I thought I might be able to sneak in 70 miles if I rode hard. I also wanted to ride the Mckenzie Hwy, which was recommended by Mr. Spears.

Here is the elevation profile of the ride I actually did, it was about 69 miles total:


And here is the route. It consisted of several out and backs.


I averaged 18.6 miles per hours. Considering that I haven't gone on a ride longer than 20 miles at any given time since the Vikingman HalfIronman the beginning of June (my rides are normally around 13 miles each going back and forth to work) going even 70 miles is quite long. And given the climbing that I did going up the Mckenzie highway (I topped out at around 5000 feet) and that this was still going to be the longest ride I have ever attempted I still had my work cut out for me. And I was going solo. No one to draft, no one to keep me sane during that time in the saddle. I did have my Ipod, which was nice.

As an aside, I have to thank Brian for recommending the McKenzie Hwy add-on. Sure it was a bit of a climb, but there was a lot less traffic there and the view at Windy Point was spectacular. I went a bit farther past that lookout, but soon decided to turn around since it was really windy and I was not particular dressed for the temperature drop up there near the top of the pass. The ride back down was fast and fun. My speed going back down was in the upper 30's, so it wasn't too scary.

Oh, this reminds me. I added something new to my drop bar set up--a Syntace SLS aerobar.

I bolted it right on to my Ritchey WCS aluminum drop bar. I changed nothing about the position of the drop bar before I put the Syntace on. Oddly enough, it felt better than the bar I ran for the Vikingman. That was a full TT set up with a base bar, aerobars with the bar end shifters etc. With the set up I ran today it was a bit of a pain in the butt to reach out to shift, but it wasn't too big of a deal. But the bars were very comfy. I strongly recommend them. I will be selling my old set up.

I also left on my Selle San Marco Aspide saddle on the bike instead of the much bigger/thicker TT saddle I was running before. It was a little less comfy, but by the 40 mile mark I was feeling fine and it never was an issue.

But I did start to have issues. Comfort was fine (well except for my back which suddenly felt like it was on fire--I guess I was pushing too big a gear), I just started to bonk. Around mile 55 I started to feel a bit nauseated. I stopped and downed a gel and some Gatorade, but I started feeling worse and worse. Bridget called me and asked if I could get on back to Black Butte Ranch and I tried to hurry there--but I was having problems. My heart rate started rocketing. I didn't have my HR monitor on, but if I had it would have been near my max I am sure. I had to back way off and just try to get back without it getting any worse. Oh, and my back was killing me. Bad. As in I wished I was doing anything else other than riding at that point.

Once in BBR I met up with the wife and kids and we rode together back to the house. I felt like I was going to throw up or faint or both. It was bad. I knew then that I wanted no part of any Creampuff 100 attempt. This was just a 69 mile ride with one decent road climb. The Creampuff would be much much worse. I bonked because I didn't eat well at all. I didn't have breakfast and I only ate a few gels or gel-like things during the course of the 3 hour 43 minute ride. I figure I consumed not more than 500 to 550 calories during the morning. Not nearly enough. But the reason I have done a mental 180 regarding the Creampuff is becuase of my back. I often have lower back pain. Doing the Creampuff would require a lot of strengthening and a lot of training. I don't want to go through all of that. Training for a half ironman tri is bad enough. This would be much worse. Plus the idea of spending 12 to 13 hours in the saddle holds no allure after today.

Bottom line, I will pass on the Cascade Creampuff 100. It is not that I can't do it. It is that I don't want to do it. At all. Pass. Maybe my man-card won't have quite the cred with having done it, but I don't want to allocate that much time to training for that event. I was made aware today just what it would take be able to finish it and I want no part of that. At least not now.

To me the funniest part of all of this is the two conversations I had with DTP about doing the Creampuff. On Friday I told him I was thinking about doing it next year. He jumped all over it. I couldn't believe it. Here is a guy that backed out of at least 2 triathlons this year and now he wanted to do something much worse? All that time on the couch has made him delusional. He was adamant that he wanted to do it. I told him he was nuts. But, he insisted that an event like this has always interested him. I wanted to call BS, but he said that while the thought of a triathlon didn't really make him want to get off of the couch and ride, the thought of an event like this really sort of excited him. I told him some of the facts regarding the race (length, total elevation climbed, time limit, etc.) and yet he still wasn't scared off. Later I related this to Fish who just laughed. Fish has never had any intention of doing this event or Leadville. He is the sane one here obviously. Then DTP called me today and during the conversation I told him that I was out. He then revealed that after doing some research about the course he was a little scared to do it, but he was still committed to do it if I was. BS, but whatever. That is easy to say from the couch. I believe he was secretly glad when I said I had come to my senses.

One last thing. I mentioned that I was feeling totally ill and nauseated when I returned from the ride today. That feeling only lasted about 20 to 30 minutes and then other than feeling tired I was normal. I did a combination of things that really worked well. I downed a packet of Hammer Nutrition Recoverite, four SportLegs tablets, and three Ibuprofen (for my back). And a small glass of Sunny D. Felt like I could have gone out for another 20 or 30 miles after that. Not that I would have, but it was nice not to feel like roadkill anymore. I will be buying more the Hammer Recoverite soon. I think it had a lot to do with my quick recovery.

UPDATE: I feel great the day after this ride. Legs feel good, and I felt good the whole rest of the day. I have learned a good lesson about nutrition. I am sure that is why I bonked at the end. Not enough fuel. As soon as I got some stuff in me I felt great. Swimming this morning went fine as well. But despite my quick rebound I still have no desire to do the Creampuff.