Freedom from Fear: My July 4th on Mt. Lemmon

My previous attempts on Mt. Lemmon ended with me turning around after about 6 or 8 miles and heading out to the Cactus Forest Loop for the remainder of my ride. There were several issues... my fear of descending being primary, and my frustration of climbing at a slow pace of 5-7 mph. Eventually I would just get angry and bail on the mountain. I swore I wasn't going to do Lemmon again until I was ready to go to the top.

Somehow I let the Skirt Chaser convince me that this weekend was the appropriate time to tackle that challenge. We drove down on Saturday evening after work. He had done some research and found a cheap hotel near our usual starting point, and a fabulous locally owned, organic pizza place, Eclectic Pizza. It was wonderful. The sauce was slightly sweet, the tomatoes were fresh picked and the beer was ice cold. Anyway, this is about the bike ride, not the pizza.

We woke early on Sunday morning. Skirt Chaser gave me the lowdown on the mountain on our way to our starting place on the corner of Tanque Verde and Catalina Hwy. The one thing that I clung to was when he said that the first 6 miles or so were the toughest. This turned out to be my demise.

He rode the 4.5 miles with me to the base and then when we hit the climb we made plans to meet at the top and he took off leaving me chugging slowly along. I was passed by hundreds of cyclists. Slow and steady. I tried to enjoy myself and the farther along I got, the more I looked forward to getting past 6 or 8 miles, hoping it would level off a little. I rode 7 miles in the first hour. I started to get antsy. When is this going to get easier? Turned out... never. In fact, the higher I got, the steeper and harder it got.

I paused briefly at mile 11 to sip some Infinit and rest for 30 seconds. Back on the road I was fighting demons. Hard core demons. I knew that mile 14, Windy Point, would be a tempting stopping point as this was where many cyclists turned around. I forced myself to ride right on by without stopping. By now, I was near tears. I vacillated between crying and cursing. I always considered myself fairly mentally tough. This climb undid me. I was completely broken. Finally, I rationalized that I needed to just suck it up and get to the top... otherwise I would have to come back to this mountain and do it again. I can't leave unfinished business, and I needed to shut the Skirt Chaser up (sorry, babe!). He was not going to leave well enough alone if I didn't get to the top.

At one point, the grade got so steep that I feared I would tip over. My quads were shot. I was done. I got off my bike and began to walk. Uphill. I didn't want to just stop. I needed to keep making forward progress even if it was on foot. I walked for about a quarter mile, until my legs felt a little better and then I got back on the bike. Back in the saddle. When I had under 10 miles to go, I started to count down each mile, a little victory. Kind of like a marathon.

At mile 20 is the Palisades. From Palisades, there is a gentle decline for about a mile, then another climb for a couple of miles, and then it's all downhill for about a mile into the village of Summerhaven. Skirt Chaser had been to the top and was on his way back down when he met me near Palisades. He was going to keep descending for a bit, and promised to meet me in Summerhaven at the Cookie Cabin. I kept plugging along and when I saw the village I rejoiced. I was done. I found the Cookie Cabin and ordered a chocolate chip cookie for us to share and drank a Coke while I waited for him to join me. We soon figured out that a Independence Day Parade was scheduled for that afternoon. We didn't linger too long, wanting to hit the road back down before the parade started.

The descent... I am typically a big chicken. I ride the brakes until my hands cramp. But after climbing back out to Palisades, I was ready for the downhill. I let loose. I'm not saying I didn't break... but I coasted a majority of the time. Woo hoo! It was awesome! I gained a lot of confidence by realizing that I wasn't going to lose control and go careening off the cliff. In fact, the last 8 miles I actually ended up pedaling a lot and not using my breaks at all cause the wind was so strong it was slowing me down!

Skirt Chaser met me at the bottom and we rode back to the car for our transition run. Back out on Catalina Highway, this time on foot, I felt strong. I ran well, despite the heat and the blistering sun. When it was all said and done, I rode 59 miles in 5 hours... 25 miles of it being the climb to over 8000 feet, and ran 5 miles. We collapsed into chairs at Le Buzz for a fabulous lunch before heading home. I couldn't think of a better way to spend my July 4th. Free to ride my bicycle.