Century Ride!

When coach told me Saturday night that I needed to get in a 6 hour ride next week, I realized I didn't have many options. We'll be in Boston for the marathon, and I certainly won't have a bike there. I can't do 6 hours on a weekday unless I want to be on the trainer forever (no thanks), and so that left one option. That five hour ride on Sunday? Just grew an hour.

Sunday morning, I was up to an alarm, and checked the weather. 30 degrees. Guess I'm waiting for the sun to warm things up a bit before setting out. I busied myself with getting things ready. 3 gels, 4 luna bars (the manliest of energy bars), a baggie of salt tablets, an aerobottle of water, and three gatorade bottles. I'm lucky enough to have family living on the way out to the countryside now, so I stashed some extra gatorade on their porch. And when ten o'clock rolled around, it was finally above 40 degrees, and time to ride!

First problem of the day - I went to put on my sunglasses, and the bridge cracked! Guess the cheap-o ones don't last forever, especially when they're mainly used while jammed under a bike helmet! A quick dose of superglue appeared to take care of the issue. Okay, NOW it's time to ride.

The plan was to head northeast from home, out to Mount Vernon, and then pick up a reportedly nice bike trail for the rest of the distance. I've been averaging around 16 mph on my long rides, which made me think. 5 x 16 = 96. Why would I ride 96, when I could ride 100? So I planned to turn around at mile 50, wherever on the trail I was.



The first piece of the ride, out to my sister-in-law's house, was pretty uneventful save for the wind. It was, of course, out of the northeast. And every single road for the first 50 miles was either north...or east. Those first 20 miles are a slight uphill, and almost exclusively through open farmland, so my average was suffering as I plowed into the wind. Eventually, I got to their house, refilled my bottles, and got ready to climb.

Next up was the road I went down during my last long 3:45 outdoor ride. It's not like any one part of this ride is especially tough. It's nothing compared to so many of the rides I read about. But every little rolling hill is followed by one a little higher, and a little higher. It's a lot of shifting, and not many downhills long enough to catch a breath. Mile 27 or so was about the first time I got to stand up and stretch out the legs while I coasted for a bit. The good news? One particular intersection has a big steep hill right after a stop sign. But this time? By luck, I happened to pick that exact road to make a right turn, and I could smile as I went around the hill. At this point, I was in unridden territory. There was one more steep climb (I saw a sign reading "Sky Ridge Farm" at the top), and I was rewarded with a view of the city of Mt. Vernon. I wound my way down the long hill into town.

I'm always a bit paranoid of getting my wheels caught in a crack or a hole. On the way into town, there were railroad tracks, and they were NOT anywhere close to perpendicular to my road. Thank goodness the traffic there was light, because I swung nice and wide to make sure I didn't slip in there and take a nasty fall. And thank goodness for iPhones, because I needed to check my map once I got into town and make sure I didn't go past my road. Nope, I was still on course, and found my way to the trail. (Actually very well marked) And after the ka-CHUNK ka-CHUNK of mediocre paving jobs in the city, the smooth blacktop felt like heaven. It also added some free speed! The Kokosing Gap trail ended up being a very pretty part of my ride, and I can only imagine that it's even better once the trees fill in. It follows the river through farmland, parks, and next to a few small towns. The only downside I found was a fair number of stop signs as it crossed country roads, but I only truly had to stop for traffic once. And finally, I reached mile 50 and time to turn around!

I was feeling pretty good, but the same couldn't be said of my sunglasses. When I took them off at the turnaround to call home, the superglue job came undone, and I thought the glasses were going with it. The whole way back, I was completely expecting them to fly apart, but thankfully it never happened.

Soon after the turnaround, the BEST THING ALL DAY happened. I was going by a playground, and a family was just getting ready to take their bikes onto the trail. A tween-ish aged boy was warned by his mom to watch out, as I was coming down the path. And as I passed, I heard him exclaim "MAN! How fast was he GOING?!". :) Kid, if you're available, I'd like to hire you to spectate all my rides from now on.

(And around 19 mph at the time, for the record)

I didn't realize until now from looking at the elevation chart just how much I climbed back out of there. It was a long hill, but my legs and mind were feeling good now that I was on the way home. And finally having a tailwind after over three hours of headwind didn't hurt either! Once I finished that climb, I rolled my way up and (mostly) down from the high point. Around 80 miles in, I started feeling like I wanted to be done, but it was mentally manageable. It helped to be back in familiar territory, where I know the roads by heart, and could just put my head down and ride. One more fuel stop for a final bottle of gatorade, and it was time to get home. And I pulled up to our driveway at...

99.8 miles.

Like I'm stopping there! One victory lap around our street made it 100.1, and then it was really time to stop at 6 hours, 21 minutes. I was tired, a little sun or windburnt on my face (every other part of my body was covered), but happy. I never did make up all the time lost at the beginning due to the headwind, but ended up at a 15.76 mph average. That would be just over 7 hours for Ironman distance, which sounds okay to me! And my legs felt like they still had some energy...a marathon wouldn't have been my first choice of things to do, but I think I could have gotten through it.

(I've also got a few pictures from the ride snapped on my iPhone, which I'll post as soon as I get them downloaded)