Completed First Century
 

Yesterday I complete my first century. It was a grueling 110 miles of hills and gravel with a dash of mud. I have been training since winter and it payed off. I started my quest to get in shape an lose weight last year. I did not own a bike just over a year ago and had never "trained" for any athletic event. The event is called the Dirty Kanza and this is the first year that they had a "100" mile route. Of the 300 registered for the 110 mile route 147 finished the course in the required time (10 mi. / hour average). I finished 119th overall. As to the weight I am down from 365lbs to the current weight of 312. I just want to finish with saying thanks for being you Clydes and Athenians I have used information from the form to help with all kinds of issues facing a large fella get ready for something like this.

Awesome!!!!

Congratulaltions! On the weight loss and on the riding accomplishment. Next? A double-metric century. You almost had one.

A wonderful accomplishment.

Charlie

Nice job! I'm hoping to get a Metric Century and there you go doing an actual one! Very nice.

Great accomplishment! Gravel on your first Century, whew!

This is awesome! Please share what you learned, what worked for nutrition on the ride, what was sore after the ride, etc. What is your next goal?

Congrats SS!

There's a ride here called the Gravel Grovel that I've been tempted to jump into this fall. I'd like to hear more about the course, the ride, and how you fared in the mud. :)

Congratulations! Gravel really ups the difficulty level -- that's one heck of a first century.

Very cool!

Congrats! Well done.

So people took 11 hours to do that thing? Good grief that's a long time in the saddle... whew!

Yes that was a long time in the saddle. There was a cut off time and I was with in a half our, so I was one of the slower ones. There were 300 entered into the "100 mile" course of them 147 finished. I was the 119th to complete the course. The fastest time was 7:11:48.

I live for gravel grinding!

I will write a more detailed post in a bit. Thanks for all the kind words.

Here is some info for specific questions people asked.


Course: The event is the Dirty Kanza 200 (DK) and in the past they offered a double century and 2 "fun rides". The two fun rides are 20 and 50 mile corses. This is the first year that they had a 100 mile course that they called the half pint. The Double century is still the main event and they did not have podium for the 100. The course was 110 miles long through the flint hills of Kansas. It started and ended in my home town of Emporia. For the record we (Kansas) may not have mountains but the state is not flat. I had 4544 ft of climbing. Luckily the gravel was good. There were very few sections that had new rock on them so most of the day was not too bad.


The mud was not too bad. We had about a quater mile of hike-a-bike on a minimum maintenance road with 8in deep ruts. A few small water crossing. If I remember I will upload a picture of my bike post race.


Nutriton: As the DK is self supported I needed to plan to have enough food and drink with me for each leg. The first leg was 60 miles and the second 50. I had 100 oz of GU Roctane Grape, 45 oz of plain water and a variety of chomps and gels. The roctane was my foundation and the other was there in case I started to hate the roctane which didn't really happen. I did have some "sour stomach" about 4 hours in and had to try to get that sorted out. Flushed it out with some plain water and some goofy vegan snacks a friend gave me at the sag. I don't think that anything about those snacks being "natural" or whatever was what saved me I think it was that it was different. I had tried them before and liked them. So that was good.




What I learned: DON'T BE MESSING WITH YOUR SADDLE POSITION THE DAY BEFORE THE RACE. This foolishness on my part caused 2 problems. 1st I did not properly tighten the saddle back up and it came loose before we even got out of town. 2nd and this is the biggie, my saddle was a touch too high. About 4 hours in my right hip started screaming at me. I slowed down and just focused on getting to the checkpoint. Which was 60 miles in. The DK is self supported so the only time your support people can be on the course is if you are quitting or at the check point. I was ready to quit when I was getting close to the checkpoint, but I told myself to give the hip a chance to rest, lower the saddle and try. Spent longer at the SAG than I had planned (planned 15-20 minuets stayed 35). After I got going again it was sore for awhile and then calmed down about the time we started going with the wind rather than against it. OH MAN THE WIND 20mph + headwind most of the day.






Sore After: My hip for the even after and most of the next day (see what I learned for more info on the hip). Muscle Soreness from my neck to my calves. A gravel century is a good full body workout! If you can I highly recommend it.




Next Goal: Not sure, I did hire a coach to help me prepare for this as I had never trained for any thing like this before ( I was the chunky kid in highschool that stayed inside and did not do any sports). I think I will keep the training going and look for some more gravel rides. Maybe next year I will attempt the DK 200.

sounds brutal, good job! :thumb: