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Tahuya Hills 600k – Qualified for Paris

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Tough guysI90 at sunriseSkate Creek RoadI’m probably going out on a limb here, the randonnesia typically sets in pretty quickly, but that might have been the hardest 600k that I’ve ever completed. I’ve done most of this ride in separate chunks, usually with fresher legs. Getting slammed with climb after climb after climb with 500k in my legs and no sleep was indescribable though. My legs are jelly this week.

The start of the ride was perfect for us in the city. It was a 15 minute bike ride through Georgetown and into south downtown. We made it up with plenty of time to spare. The fields have been strong all year, thanks to PBP. This 600k was no exception. There were over 70 riders on hand for the punishment ahead.

We had a few Soft Like Kitten kits out on display. The pink is slowly becoming a staple amongst the randonneurs as well (scary). Hahn Rossman did his best to talk me into riding with the fast group, but as soon as the first hill up Jackson St. hit, it was pretty clear that I wasn’t going to keep up with them. It was time to just settle in and do my best.

We pushed out over the I-90 bridge as the sunrise came up over Lake Washington. It wasn’t quite short sleeve weather, but you could tell it was already on it’s way. Familiar roads guided us south towards Mount Rainier and it’s surrounding cities. Chris G, Dylan, Chris Johnson and I hung near the front of the pack for a surprisingly long time.

Shortly after Elbe, we turned out onto (the new to me) Skate Creek Road. It was a lovely stretch that skips the climb to Paradise in favor of a shorter elevation gain alongside a river. The day was heating up, but the area was very well shaded. Shortly after we crested the top, my front tire flatted. My bike tried to buck left and right underneath me on the decent, but I got it under control. A short fix and some fast riding later, we were in Packwood.

I’ve got nothing but interesting memories of Packwood. I still remember laying out for hours with Matt on our failed 600k attempt a couple of seasons ago. There is no cell reception in the city and I spent like 4 dollars trying to call Jane to come get us (it was like 10:30pm at that point). This trip was more kind though. A “Subway” (knockoff) sandwich and some chips helped us push on.

Mt. RainierPassengerSunriseThe stretch of highway 12 between Packwood and Morton was my own little hell. The temperature was in the upper 80′s, the shade was non-exsistent, and the traffic was busy. There were no turn offs for over 30 miles. I always have at least one low on a ride this long and this was most definitely it. I was already questioning whether or not I could actually push on through the night like we had planned. It seemed a herculean task at that moment. Hell, just getting into Morton seemed like a bigger task than I could handle. I kept slipping off the back and into my own head.

I forced everyone to spend a little more time in Morton then they probably needed to. It really helped me out though. I left with a bit more motivation. I was even happy for the climbing ahead of us. It was nice to shake up the rhythm of the ride with some rollers. Sometimes a flat stretch of road can really suck the joy out of riding a bike.

Centralia-Alpha Road took us into Centrailia around dusk . People were just starting to get out on their Saturday night drinking binges. We escaped relatively unscathed, despite all of the pink on board. Everything beyond Centrailia is somewhat of a blur for me at this point. We made it into the overnight in Elma around 1am, if I remember correctly. I felt painfully slow like I was holding up the group. I’m pretty sure that I wasn’t eating and drinking nearly enough by this point in the night.

There was hot food in Elma. I can’t stress enough how awesome this was. We spent around half an hour total here just recharging the batteries. I came in unsure if I could push on, and I left positive that I could. We left as a group of 6, including Jan Acuff,  Steven DeGroot, and Erik Nelson. The extra company turned out to be vital to our conversational ability to stay awake through the night.

There was an amazing manned volunteer station in Potlatch (the stores were all closed) and we were lucky enough to get some hot coffee around 2am. All of the volunteers were amazing. There was a second manned setup in Tahuya with even more food and drinks on hand. We arrived there around sunrise. Hot soup first thing in the morning was a little piece of heaven for me. We refueled as best we could. There was nothing but trouble up ahead of us and everyone knew it.

The last 100k of this ride is unrelenting. You can look at the course profile online, but it does it no justice. There is climb after climb after climb, almost every pitch steep enough to strain your granny gear. Every corner you turn, every hill you crest, there appears another climb ahead. If this wasn’t a PBP year, I’m guessing the DNF rates would have been astronomical. There we were though, suffering through it. Idiots.

Near SeabeckTop of Seabeck-Holly RdAfter a particularly rough climb up Seabeck-Holly Rd, there was a killer, mildly sketchy switchback descent into the “town” of Seabeck. I’m pretty sure it is about 3 stores and maybe a couple of houses hidden in there somewhere. As always though, it was beautiful and welcoming.

Seabeck-Holly is rough, but merely a warmup for the ridiculousness that is Anderson Hill Rd. The road puts you up a very tough initial climb. You hit the top and breath a sigh of relief. You start to descend and are happy that you’ve made it. This is what everyone whines about? That was tough but, come on… Oh wait… there is part two. Oh, and part three right after that. This is rough with fresh legs, it was outlandish after 500+k.

Even more outlandish than the climbing was the medieval fair on display in Port Gamble as we rolled into town. For the first time that weekend, we were the “normal” looking people. There was a goth couple outside of the general store talking in old timey accents. It was pretty surreal.

The finish line was calling though. We didn’t have time to eat oversized meats with this guy.

I put myself into an even bigger hole than normal racing to the finish. That doesn’t imply that I was going fast, by any means. It just implies that I was going faster than my body probably wanted to.

Somewhere along the stretch of SR-305, we saw the most glorious of all signs ever posted, ever (no hyperbole needed). It was a handmade sign with purples and pinks and stated: “Roberto, embrace your inner kitten.” It was posted near a big downhill and we were moving pretty quickly. I questioned my sanity for a moment. Did that just happen? Did Chris and Dylan see that too? Could that possibly be random? It was there, but we weren’t sure until later as to why. Our SLK teammate Keith had set it up as a surprise. So Soft.

Our original goal of 30 hours slowly shifted to 31 hours throughout the day. We made that time with about 6 minutes to spare.

Full Flickr set here.


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