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09-23-07, 11:01 AM
Yesterday' 09/22 being my birthday and a beautiful day besides, I decided to honor the tradition with a metric century, albeit that would be a touch more than my delicate 57 yrs. Having other obligations, Skipper could not ride with me but another friend came by who has been wanting to ride this area for some time. So off we went. First to the obligatory stop at Irma's where the fresh apple pecan crunch pie was wonderful. We then rode north through a state park on a beautiful 20 mile loop back to Argyle. There we stopped once more, only this time at a friends house, where we stocked up on water and oreos then it was back to Monroe. This gave us 65 miles and satisfied the tradition. Spent about 30mins talking with my friend as he was loading up and one of the comments he made noted that he had never done an organized century it was always spontaneous with him I did my best to ignore that and said good-bye and went inside. Can you see where this is going? 10 minutes later after washing up a bit and filling up my water bottle I was out the door and on the bike heading west just for a few additional miles primarily to serve as penance for the wanted but unneeded oreos. It was one of those deals where you make it to point A and think what the heck point B is just a bit farther and a really nice ride. Suddenly I had point B'd myself 20miles out from home. Whoops no food and short on water and a lot of hills between me and home. Thank god for country bars, kit-kats and bottled water. Started to really feel it at about 95 miles. This was unfortunate as at that point I needed to make a decision as to what series of hills I wanted(or needed anyway) to climb back into town. Thinking positively, I opted for the set that gave me the best downhill run, managing to hit 46.9mph on that stretch. The downside, of course, being that I hit the 100 mile mark going up a longish hill at the steepest point-around 10-12% grade, thank you granny gear. In any event, I finished up with 105.09 miles my 2nd century ever, approx.7 and 1/2 hrs for time. I also felt a nice sense of accomplishment and have the satisfaction of giving Skipper a goal to shoot for.( I like calling him and telling him that I've raised the bar) Better yet, its Sunday am and I feel really good, no bad after effects. In fact, maybe I'' just go for a little ride just to warm up the legs besides I haven' ridden...