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08-26-07, 07:39 PM
My first 100 mile century since mid June is now behind me. The ride went better than I had expected but probably due to taking it pretty easy. I think my riding time was 6hr 29 mins and with about 8500 ft of climbing so all in all I was pretty pleased. I did stop 3 times I think-just couldn't pass up ice cold watermelon after a 5 mile climb!!!
My ride goals were to:
Ride every wheel I possibly could get behind
Never, never, ever get out in front and lead a paceline
Stop more often and keep well hydrated
Never ever look at my time and just finish regardless of the time
The only goal I accomplished was the "hydration" one!!
The riding every wheel lasted about 60 miles.
The never lead a paceline lasted about......well it was really early in the ride. Just had to get the group's pace up a little!!
And when I peeked at my time with 20 miles to go I broke out the Gu and hammered much longer than I needed to!!!!
It got really hot around the 55-70 mile mark on some long uphills. I was riding in the oncoming lane up parts of the hills just to get in the shade. However about the 80 mile mark I got in a terrible Thunderstorm with really hard rain and some very nasty lightning. We were out in the middle of nowhere and the safest thing was just to keep riding and try and get out of the storm as quickly as possible-which I did. The rain felt really, really good though. I just didn't like the lightning bouncing off the sides of the hills around me........At least there were trees taller than me along the roads along the route where the lightning was!!
Base miles must have helped and not riding too much lately didn't seem to hurt too much. I was not as fast as in the past but hey, I'll give up a little time to enjoy the ride a little more these days.
One thing I'm seeing is these annual rides are trying to one-up each other. They all are starting to add more hills and steeper climbs on their routes. They threw 2-3 more climbs in today's route and it was pretty tough before. On some of the new hills the Garmin was showing climbs in the high teens for stretches. I don't mind doing different routes but it makes it really hard to figure out rest stops and also compare ride times when they do that to us.
One thing is for sure-just looking at the ride profile below we all got our money's worth on this one!!!!
My ride goals were to:
Ride every wheel I possibly could get behind
Never, never, ever get out in front and lead a paceline
Stop more often and keep well hydrated
Never ever look at my time and just finish regardless of the time
The only goal I accomplished was the "hydration" one!!
The riding every wheel lasted about 60 miles.
The never lead a paceline lasted about......well it was really early in the ride. Just had to get the group's pace up a little!!
And when I peeked at my time with 20 miles to go I broke out the Gu and hammered much longer than I needed to!!!!
It got really hot around the 55-70 mile mark on some long uphills. I was riding in the oncoming lane up parts of the hills just to get in the shade. However about the 80 mile mark I got in a terrible Thunderstorm with really hard rain and some very nasty lightning. We were out in the middle of nowhere and the safest thing was just to keep riding and try and get out of the storm as quickly as possible-which I did. The rain felt really, really good though. I just didn't like the lightning bouncing off the sides of the hills around me........At least there were trees taller than me along the roads along the route where the lightning was!!
Base miles must have helped and not riding too much lately didn't seem to hurt too much. I was not as fast as in the past but hey, I'll give up a little time to enjoy the ride a little more these days.
One thing I'm seeing is these annual rides are trying to one-up each other. They all are starting to add more hills and steeper climbs on their routes. They threw 2-3 more climbs in today's route and it was pretty tough before. On some of the new hills the Garmin was showing climbs in the high teens for stretches. I don't mind doing different routes but it makes it really hard to figure out rest stops and also compare ride times when they do that to us.
One thing is for sure-just looking at the ride profile below we all got our money's worth on this one!!!!