100 K Friday

(In honor of the Tour de France these distances are in kilometers)

This Ride: 100.1 km
Kona Distance: 3,546.2 km
Month to date: 669 km
2010 Total: 4296.9 km
Pace to 8,456.78 km mile goal in 2010: (11.9 km ahead goal pace)

I learned a lot on today’s ride.  Unfortunately, most of it was the hard way.

The morning started out fine.  I was the first to the Rusty Bridge.  This was Mike’s first Friday ride, Alex is getting ready for his triathlon on Sunday, and no one really was interested in pushing it.  That was fine with me too, since I was planning a 50 mile day.  I think there were 6 or 7 of us to start.  We took the trail to Old Country Road to try out the new pavement.  We hope they’ve got another layer to put down.  It is still hazardous.  It was an uneventful ride into Annapolis.  I did notice that the Naval Academy Bridge has gotten easier this week.

Breakfast at Hard Bean, sitting outside was nice.  It was ice cold in the air conditioning as we ordered, and I don’t think eating inside would have been good.  Clint called Jeff and put him on speaker phone to jerk his chain about not riding this morning.  Something about an early morning work meeting.  It sounded like we got him out of bed.

As we pushed off, the first rookie mistake happened.  I couldn’t get clipped in!  I thought, “Great.  I get new pedals and they stop working right away.”  Then it hit me … I put the covers on when we went in to get our food.  Yes, I was trying to clip in with cleat covers on.  I removed them (while still riding up Main Street), and heard the satisfying “click” when the now free cleats clipped in.

We had a pretty slow pace in the group ride this morning, and as I left Clint and Mike to continue around BWI for my 50 miles I picked up speed a little.  It felt good stretching it out a bit.  I then surveyed my water stores, and realized that I was going to be in trouble on a 50 mile ride in the building heat.  I had about 1 1/2 bottles of water, no electrolytes (forgot my ecaps) and no food.  In Glen Burnie I stopped for Gatoraide and filled a bottle with it (after consuming the water), but neglected to get food.  I don’t know what I was thinking.

I still felt good doing the BWI loop.  It was about 1/4 the way around when I decided that if I was going to do 50 miles, I might as well do 100k.  That would simply mean doing the loop (clockwise) to Dorsey Road, then turning around and doing the loop counterclockwise.  That’s what I did.  The lack of food hit me about 45-48 miles into the ride, on the counterclockwise loop.  I guess an egg cheese bagel isn’t quite enough for much beyond 35 miles.  My legs were heavy and ached some.  My heart rate came up.  I slowed down.  I was also blowing through my water at a pretty good clip.  About the time I completed the second loop, I was down to only a swallow of water/Gatorade remaining in the bottles.

Back in Glen Burnie, I jumped back into the 7-11 picking up another bottle of Gatorade and a banana.  I had a Snickers in hand at one point until I saw the bananas.  Inhaling the banana and putting away at least a quarter of the Gatorade, I climbed back into the saddle and headed home.  A few quick calculations on route so I could get my full 100k in and the final push for home.  Made it!  Again, no liquids left.

The Severna Park Peloton riders have had plenty of lessons about hydration and nutrition on rides this year.  I don’t know what I was thinking going so unprepared.  I’d never ridden this length of ride without some fig bars or something to munch every 30 to 60 minutes.  My average speed of 15.8 mph shows the impact of not being fully prepared.  I’ve got a couple of rest days built into my schedule now.  They are well deserved.

Oh … the Look pedals worked great.  This ride confirmed that they are easier to clip into and I like the float.