Strong Living

[ornoth_cycling]

Coming into the 2025 event, my history with the Livestrong Challenge was not pleasant. In 2023 I suffered mightily in extreme heat, puking my guts out just after completing the 100-mile route, then needing to call my partner to drive me home; all later documented in a blogpo entitled “It's Not Easy Being Green in the Face”. And in 2024 I had to cancel my ride, having been hospitalized with a stroke less than two weeks before the event. But in 2025, with all that behind me, would the third time be the charm?

Chilly, Foggy Morning in Austin

Team Kermit

Lined Up at Sunrise

Crossing the Finish Line

Greeted by Team Leader at the Finish

Ride 'Em Cowboy

One thing was certain: it was gonna be a hectic week. Within seven days of the ride, I observed my birthday, took my partner Inna to the airport for a 6-day trip and picked her up on her return, dealt with Halloween, voted in the state election, attended a baroque concert, waited for big news from the Pan-Mass Challenge’s record-setting check presentation ceremony, booked my hotel on Cape Cod for next year’s PMC, balanced riding in Zwift’s “Unlocked” series of rides with tapering my training, replaced my cell phone, and watched local team Austin FC’s brief run in the MLS Cup playoffs. That doesn’t even include the group rides and social events organized by my Team Kermit buddies who came down to Austin from New England, plus the seasonal daylight saving clock change and a big concert by Devo and the B-52s , both of which took place the night before the ride!

Anything else noteworthy in the lead-up? My training featured the Barrows Volksride 100k and the new Zwift Unlocked series of rides on the indoor trainer. But I was still iffy about whether I’d have the legs to do the 100-mile imperial century versus the 100-kilometer metric. It was also my first test of setting intermediate waypoints on my Garmin Edge bike computer, which worked marginally well (the waypoint list being useful, but the associated popup messages disappeared too quickly while riding). I also was shocked to learn that despite fielding over 500 riders, Livestrong hadn’t bothered to set up a “SAG” telephone number for riders who needed assistance on-route.

As usual, my Team Kermit buddies were down from New England, tho we were short a couple people I was looking forward to seeing. Sadly, I missed the team’s ride and meals on Thursday because I’d initially been left off the group emails.

Once that was corrected, I joined them on Friday for a ride out the Walnut Creek Trail, even though the 70 KM I accrued probably hurt my freshness form Sunday’s main event. Then Friday evening the team held an all-you-can-meat extravaganza at the Salt Lick BBQ joint way down in Driftwood.

Saturday I did all my prep and gathered my kit for the ride, then met the Kermits for packet pickup and a publicity photoshoot at Livestrong HQ. Then an early dinner of Thai food before heading down to the Devo & B-52s concert, where I basically spent a long 4½ hours standing around – including through a downpour and thunderstorm – the night before the ride! You can read about that here. That left me four hours to sleep – plus another hour gained thanks to the seasonal clock change! – before my pre-ride wakeup call.

Sunday morning I arose to dense fog and a chilly temperature of 10° C, so I added a base layer, arm warmers, and a windbreaker to my normal cycling kit. Since Inna was out of town, I drove myself down to the event, rather than endure a cold and time-consuming bike ride. Knowing I’d need space to store that extra clothing once the day warmed up, I decided to forego bringing my video selfie drone. But I got to the start, found my Team Kermit buddies, lined up with them in the VIP starting area, and kicked the ride off at 7:30am.

One of my goals was to start out at a relaxed pace, conserving some energy. In 2023, the combination of a fast start and extreme heat had taken an immense toll, as my pace faltered and slowed to a crawl as the ride wore on. By keeping a moderate pace, I hoped to avoid blowing up and beat that previous time.

But as soon as 25 KM in, I questioned that aspiration and the wisdom of doing the full 100-mile route. I was cold, sleep-deprived, dehydrated, poorly fueled, and not fully recovered from Friday’s 70 KM ride. I felt pretty lousy as I pulled into the Driftwood rest stop at 45 KM. However, I downed a banana and grabbed a couple chocolate chip cookies, and seemed to recover my strength. I was also buoyed as the skies cleared and the temperature rose.

Shortly after leaving that Driftwood stop, I picked up a wheelsucker, which would be the salient feature of the day. By riding just behind another cyclist, you can save anywhere from 15 to 35% of your power, so sitting on another rider’s wheel is a tactic for riders who want a brief rest. In pacelines, riders rotate from front to back, spending a little extra effort at the front in exchange for lots of time to rest in the protected draft of everyone else.

That wasn’t what my wheelsucker did, tho. He sat on my wheel for the next four hours, benefiting from my draft for 90 KM, without once taking a pull on the front. Through the next five rest stops, whether I stopped for 10 minutes or didn’t pull in at all, he remained glued to my wheel. To be fair, I didn’t complain – having no real reason to – and he did apologize, but it was kinda disconcerting nonetheless. I shrugged it off and just did my own ride, and when I took a little extra time to recover at the last rest stop, he finally chose to continue on without me.

As I mentioned above, one of my goals was to beat my 2023 time. While I started out slower this year, I figured I’d gain a lot of time in the latter half of the course, because in 2023 I’d slowed significantly as I fatigued, plus I had wasted a lot of time at rest stops, trying to recover. My theory more than proved out. Although I was 20 minutes behind my 2023 time in reaching the Driftwood stop, I’d begun pulling that back by the halfway point. And in the end I crossed the finish line at 2:08pm, beating my previous time by exactly an hour!

After the ride, I was in a much better physical state than I’d been in 2023. I grabbed my finisher’s medal, hung out to cheer the teammates who finished after me, and downed 4 slices of pizza and a couple cans of cola. In my email I found the announcement that this year’s Pan-Mass Challenge (which I’d ridden remotely) had donated a record $78 million to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. And in another unexpected surprise, one of our Team Kermit riders won a gorgeous hand-built wooden kayak after entering the Livestrong raffle!

When the team eventually moseyed back to their hotel, I hopped back on the bike to ride an extra 11 KM. See, the Livestrong route is actually a little bit short of 100 miles, and I wanted to make sure I did a full century. Plus, during the ride I’d accidentally paused my bike computer’s activity for about 15 minutes, so my recorded mileage was short by another 7 KM. So I chose to ride a little extra, to avoid any controversy about my second 100 mile ride of the year and 112th in total. Only then did I pack up and head home for my appointment with a massage gun and a bowl of ice cream.

As I said at the top, it was an intensely hectic week, culminating with a difficult endurance event. But I came through it successfully, and felt really accomplished, as well as exhausted. I spent a little more social time with Team Kermit, and enjoyed a couple brief conversations with my grammar school buddy turned Livestrong board member, Scott.

It was an immense improvement over last year, when I had to cheer from the sidelines following my stroke, and over 2023, when I struggled to complete the ride before promptly retching liters of undigested sports drink into a handy trash bin. The 2025 Livestrong Challenge weekend was just as intense as those previous years, but it was memorable for far more positive reasons.