My First Century

Yesterday, I rode the Covered Bridge Tour century. It was a beautiful route on pretty much all country/rural roads. I think there was only one traffic light the whole 101 miles. The route takes you through 5 covered bridges and was so very well supported, thank you volunteers!! There were plenty of food choices at all the water stops and I heard the lunch stop was great; however, I overshot that one.

On to the more interesting details: My details from the bike.

Alarm went off at 5:30 am.
Jumped out of bed, made coffee, gathered my stuff and out the door we went by 6:30 to try to eat some breakfast in the hotel lobby. Nothing looked good to me. I tried a couple bites of PB on a bagel, but I couldn't stomach solid food that early in the morning. The coffee totally sucked at the hotel and I needed my bucket of coffee :(

My friend Mara and I arrived at the registration table around 7am and got checked in, went to the bathroom, met up with Shifty from Bike Forums, and went back to Mara's car to get geared up for the day. Geared up this morning was my short sleeved jersey, arm warmers, Pearl Izumi sugar shorts, bad kitty socks<---very important for a long ride, helmet, mirror (don't laugh) and sunglasses. We saw Dan and Liz from the Vancouver Bicycle Club on the tandem in the parking lot as well as a couple other guys from Bike Forums getting ready (Skip and Dennis). I think we actually left the parking lot around 7:40am. I was already 40 minutes off my plan, but I was okay with that because we had a friendly bunch to start out with which often matters more then having a personal goal I've learned :). After about 7 miles we all kind of split up from each other and into our own pace. I didn't feel warmed up enough to keep up with the BF guys and the tandem so I just took it easy warming up alone. Mile 0-19 was very flat. Perhaps there were some small inclines, but no hills. It was so peaceful and the sun was rising, I passed by lavender and mint fields, farms and rolling hills abounded.

Mile 19 (first rest stop): I had gone through both my bottles of Accelerade so I refilled those, downed a Power Bar gel, went to the bathroom, said good bye to the lingering peeps and got back on the bike. I was feeling great and by about mile 30 I was all warmed up which was good because at mile 36.8 we hit Jordan Road which was a steep hill. We powered up that hill and I felt great, finally a hill to get my legs working. Right after the hill was another rest stop.

Mile 37.7 (2nd rest stop): I went in the fire station, used the bathroom, refilled my bottles, downed another gel and got back on the bike. At mile 40 I thought, wow I feel fantastic I cannot believe I had already knocked out 40 miles. But in the back of my mind I remembered how so many people had encouraged me to take an ibuprofen early so I did. Wow, that I believe was my #1 mistake of the day. #2 was that I didn't apply sunscreen later in the ride...ouch i'm a lobster. So back to the advil mistake. I was doing great, feeling great, so great that I overshot the turn off for the lunch stop at mile 52.7.

Mile 53.6 (Meridian Road): This was a fun little climb up a moderate grade "stair step" kind of hill. There were 3 humps to it and I'm guessing it was about a mile total, maybe a bit more. It was fun, but right after that little climb my belly started giving me trouble. It felt like my intestines were cramping up and a twisting; burning pain like this stayed with me for another 40 miles. I was running really low on water. I only had 1/2 a bottle of diluted Accelerade to get me to the next rest stop which was at mile 69.8 and I knew there was going to be a good climb at mile 64 so I saved it until the climb up Mt. Hope drive. I started taking bites off my bar of choice to help my stomach, but to no avail.

I met a rider back on the stair step climb who ended up riding with me to the end. We both had our ipods plugged in and only had a couple small little conversations which was just fine with me. I enjoyed my tunes, he enjoyed his. He tried to get me to draft him, but I was uncomfortable with his inconsistent pace to be *that* close to his wheel.

Mile 63.4 was my favorite mile of the whole day. It was a great climb up and a fun descent down. Okay, the descent actually would have been much more fun if it hadn't been freshly gravel/oiled or whatever that is they do around here. After this section there were only going to be a few rollers to play up and down. The ride was quite flat. I felt super after the climb up Mt Hope drive. Sometimes the right hill will do that to me, it kind of drains me, but immediately afterwards my body tingles and kind of kicks into a higher gear. I love that feeling, it must be adreneline. So off we sped onto the next rest stop.

Mile 67.1 was very special because now I was embarking into new territory. My longest ride prior to this century was 67 miles.

Mile 69.8 (rest stop 4): Oh how glad I was to pull in here and refill my water bottles. I couldn't stomach the Accelerade any longer so I refilled one bottle with water and one bottle with some old school lemon-lime Gatorade :)--->also YUCK. I ate a half of a banana, went to the bathroom, I put on some Tool on the ipod and jumped back on the bike. Good tunes can really get my mind off the aches and pains. The only real aches and pains were still my stomach, but it wasn't debilitating. The next 20 miles were fun. A few rollers and one fun descent. The day was heating up and I was feeling bothered knowing my skin was getting fried.

Mile 88.6 (rest stop 5): I was absolutely famished by this time so I was so happy to see some lemon poppy seed muffins, granola, and another 1/2 a banana. I literally inhaled those items, refilled my bottles with plain water and got back on the bike feeling so much better. My stomach cramping subsided shortly after.

The remaining 12 miles were VERY flat so my new found riding partner and I took turns pulling each other along that section. At mile 94 I got a second wind and came up to the front for a turn and started pedaling as fast as I could maintain at 20-21mph (that is Ticia fast lol). We must have had tail winds because I never pedal "that" fast. My knees were beginning to ache a bit and I thought that my seat could probably use an adjustment, but I was still feeling like I could have gone on for at least another 20 miles ;).

Pulling into the finish we were welcomed by root beer floats which TOTALLY hit the spot. I was craving those the night before and was surprised to see such a finish line treat. So I parked myself under a tree, layed down and waited for Mara to finish (she ended up riding the full century instead of the planned 85 er)!! I was so proud to see her smiling face when she came pedaling into the parking lot. We did it and I achieved my goal of coming in under 7 hours. My total time on the bike was 6 hours and 31 minutes.

Lessons learned:
-Don't take advil w/o solid food in my stomach.
-Eat a better breakfast.
-Bring sunscreen!
-I didn't need 10 scoops of Accelerade for this adequately supported ride.
-Having a riding partner at your pace can be a huge moral support.
-Don't pay attention and obsess over my mph average ;)
-Training was good, I felt confident and not in over my head which translated to a relatively "easy" ride (by easy I mean a strong finish with energy to spare).
-Check the camera to make sure it is charged. Thus the lack of pictorials.

Now for the thanks...where is my podium? Where are my podium boys? lol
Big thank yous to my dear hubby who supports my desire to go ride all over town and is the studliest Dad and husband ever. He never complains about all the time I've worked on cranking out the miles to achieve this goal. He lets me go on and on about my rides. Thank you to my kiddos for letting your mommy ride her bike. Thank you Mara for motivating me in the mornings ;) Big thank yous to George and Brandy for their constant lectures ;) and fantastic coaching tips, tricks, listening to me go on and on and on about my rides and their constant encouragement. Lastly, but certainly not least by any means thank you peeps of the VBC group rides who have both hung back with me or teased me into chasing them up the hills of Vancouver...you know who you are :P

Another lastly,
Writing this tonight (the night after) I feel good. My knees were sore, but I think I know the remedy for this and I have some mild soreness in my quads. Otherwise, my wrists, neck and back don't hurt like I had anticipated they would.

I just found that someone (Hill pumper) on Bike forums posted some great pictures of this ride. You can view here.

I'll be riding with some more distance in my future ;)