Century Accomplished!

This Ride: 102.0 mi <— Century Ride!  First one ever!
Kona Miles: 1620.1 mi
Month to date: 261.2 mi
2010 Total: 2076.5 mi <— Now over 2000 miles for the year!

That’s a milestone in my cycling.  One hundred miles cycling in a day.  I’ve got the feeling that in time, this accomplishment will be superseded by other grand accomplishments, but for now … I’m glad to achieve this.

The possibility of using Friday to ride the Century emerged Thursday evening.  But I told no one.  The forecast was perfect with lower temperatures and low humidity.  Friday morning when I rode to join the 5:45 ride I still wasn’t quite sure.  I planned to do the breakfast ride, then stop at home for “supplies” for the longer ride.  The day was full of changes.

Before launching from the Rusty Bridge I announced to the assembled group that today would be my Century ride.  There it was, out there and no turning back.  A miscue on a turn/no turn in Round Bay nearly put an end to the whole plan.  I was the last to know about a route change and nearly caused an accident because of it.  I’m still learning what it means to ride in a group.  The peloton broke up in Annapolis to visit different eateries, and I chose to go with Mike as I had offered to ride with him on his commute to work.  Service was terribly slow, and we saw the others climbing Main street before our breakfast was served.  After about an hour at the restaurant, we were back on the bikes (Garmin hiccuped and didn’t go into automatic pause mode during breakfast) and I traveled with Mike to near his work at the “top” of the BWI loop.  This ended the group part of my ride.

The solo part of the ride remained pleasant.  Any ride on the BWI trail from north to south has some long downhill legs, and I made pretty quick work of the return trip.  By the time I arrived home, I already had 50 miles logged.  I grabbed more Gatorade, Fig Newtons, and water for the rest of the trip.

I’m not one concerned about so-called cycling propriety.  I don’t shave my legs and I chose to carry a Camelback pack full of ice water.  Maybe road cyclers don’t carry water on their backs, but I’ve had two friends who on long rides spent time in the hospital recovering from dehydration.  The first 50 miles I only had a bottle of water and one of Gatoraide (coffee at breakfast and a glass of orange juice).  I believed I was already in deficit.

I headed out again, and within a mile realized I had forgotten two items I really wanted.  Sunglasses and sunscreen.  I looped back home, picked up these items, and set out again.  I had a loose idea about where I might go, but again, with about a mile into the ride, my wife called and asked me to end my ride at the hospital where she works to pick up the car.  With 46 miles to go, planning that change of endpoint really wasn’t that hard.

I don’t recall much of the ride down the trail, down College Parkway to Sandy Point State Park.  It was nice and uneventful with car drivers being courteous and a nice easy pace.  I stopped briefly at Sandy Point to rehydrate and refuel.  I continued back toward St. Margaret’s Road, back onto Hwy 2 north from the Academy Bridge and back onto the B&A trail.  I struggled some between mile 75 and 85.  I knew I was headed into record-setting territory for my longest ride, and I could still end at home without a lot of effort.  But once I had 85 miles on the clock, suddenly I knew this Century would be complete and with less than an hour to go, things were good.

After some quick calculations, I added East-West Highway to Veteran’s Highway out and back to consume some road, and back on the trail before jumping on surface roads to the hospital.  At the hospital, I still had a few miles yet to add, so I went up to the southern end of the airport using the trail for part of the route, then back to the hospital.  The Garmin doesn’t quite show the full 102 miles traveled, but I turned it off just before entering the parking garage and climbed the ramp to the 3rd floor.  I was surprised at how easy the climb was after 100 miles.

This was a great ride.  After climbing off the bike, my legs wanted to do circles when walking.  I was very ready to be off the saddle.  My wife and I were back in Annapolis for happy hour and dinner later in the evening, and I was restless.  I didn’t want to be sitting.  I did feel a little chilled a couple of times late in the ride, so I just consumed more water, and that seemed to address it.  I didn’t have any cramping.

My schedule won’t allow me back on the bike until at least Monday.  Maybe I’ll get out with the Monday 5:45 group again.

I am disappointed that the Garmin device chose to keep running while we were eating breakfast instead of slipping into autopause.  I didn’t want to forget to turn it on when restarting the ride.  That throws some stats off.   The delay in posting this ride comes mostly because I had to really scramble the rest of the weekend to accomplish the things I put off to do this ride.