Hey, I'm one of those people who did their first century in the past year. For some reason it seems like a long time ago, but my first metric was at the end of last March (Icicle Metric in Delaware), then I did one more a couple weeks later and rode my first imperial century at Calvin's Challenge a few weeks after that. Though I kind of overshot, doing 150 miles instead.

The big loop at that ride is 50 miles, so I think of the experience in thirds. For the first loop, I tried to hang on to people to get the draft, but that was not a good idea. When I got back to the start I was tired and sore. So I rested for more than half an hour. I also changed out of my wet socks and rain jacket, since it seemed like the rain was done.

For the second loop I rode alone almost the whole time, having learned my lesson about trying to hang on to anybody. So I felt a lot better stamina-wise. Unfortunately, I had been wrong about the rain, so I got wet and very cold, esp when I had to stop to fix a flat. But the rain cleared up again (this time for good) toward the end of that loop, so I finished my first 100 miles in one day feeling not bad.

And since it was about 45 minutes before the shorter loop was going to open, I set off on the big loop again. This one was the most memorable. About 15 miles in I was already feeling pretty worn out, and after 20 miles I was nauseous. I caught up to a couple people and stuck with them for the draft until the halfway checkpoint, but they said they were going to be stopping for a while, so I left there with a different person, Doug.

By that point I was feeling terrible. I was hungry, thirsty, and nauseous, and of course drinking or eating anything would make the nausea angry. And I had no choice but to go 25 more miles. But Doug and I traded pulls (not evenly, I'm afraid) and talked, and thus I was able to make it home. Where I lay on the ground coughing (I now have an inhaler for that) and shivering, and consumed the one thing that sounded good: most of a bottle of grapefruit juice.

By the evening, I was already feeling glad I'd done it, and by the next day I was already looking forward to the next thing. I've done 5 more since then, and hopefully there are many more to come.