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September 16, 2006
100 Miles Down, 7 To Go
I survived! My very first century ride and I'm still alive to talk about it. In fact we even got lost and rode 7 extra miles just for the heck of it. Sweet. Now add 5 more miles of riding, 2.4 miles of swimming before and a marathon afterwards and you have yourself an Ironman! (insert shake of head in disbelief here :)
Great ride today. It was me and 5 of the other guys on the team - all cyclists, no other triathletes which means they picked on me all day long. It's always interesting hanging out with 5 guys and being the only girl. At first they are somewhat reserved and then their true nature shows through. It was an interesting day to say the least. :)
The course was really nice, all country roads and well marked although we definitely missed a turn, went about 2 miles down the road, realized we missed the turn, rode back and got on the right path. This was around 85 miles by the way so I was a bit concerned. I supposed there is no good time at which point you want to get lost on a 100 mile ride, but 85 miles is one of the more disheartening times. :)
I kept waiting for the ride to get REALLY hard...thinking that point would come at 75 or 85 or 90 but truthfully it wasn't until the last 3 miles that I felt bad. I just kept chugging along. The first 75 miles went by really fast and then time started to slow some. From 90 miles on I was definitely watching the bike computer a lot more closely and the distance was ticking by much slower but it really wasn't as bad as I thought. It took us about 5:40 of actual riding time which comes out to be just about 18.9 MPH average. I thought we'd actually ride a little faster but trust me, I wasn't complaining! I was also worried about getting dropped or slowing those guys down which didn't happen until those last 3 miles when I suddenly became toast. At that point I just focused on turning the pedals and eventually made it back just fine.
I gotta tell ya - I was glad to get off that bike. REALLY glad. I don't hurt nearly as much as I thougt I would but my butt is sore! And there's no telling how I might feel tomorrow.
Overall a success. A beautiful day. I know 5 of my teammates MUCH better than I ever knew them before (perhaps a little more than I ever wished I did :) and now I can say I've ridden a full century. And I got a suntan! Probably the most sun I've gotten all summer. How about that for added bonus... :)
Posted by beth at September 16, 2006 8:49 PM