My First Century

My First Century (Kelly Brush Foundation Century Ride in/around Middlebury, VT)

1. Probably the toughest physical challenge of my life
2. Weather sucked- pouring rain for the first 30-40 miles
3. I felt like dying
4. It was a blast

So I woke up at precisely 5:40 am. Had some granola with milk, and OJ. We (me, James, Alex, Vinnie and Jill) met at the ‘airport’, loaded up our bikes and were on our way by 7. Thanks to James for offering to drive his van so we could all fit our bikes in! It was already raining and about 55 degrees. Once we got there around 8 we pre-registered and everything. Thanks to the guy who wrote a check for $750- allowing 5 UVM riders to participate! We grabbed some warm coffee, bagels, bananas and stocked up with powerbars and goo for the road.

We were off at 9:15. There were probably about 100 people, which was a great turnout. I thought I had enough layers on but was still freezing and soaked within minutes. The course was a 50 mile loop, with a rest stop at the 25 mile mark. The rain was so painful. Even though I wore glasses the rain still got into my eyes and there was a point where I could not even open my eyes because it stung sooo bad. But the rain finally lightened up. Grabbed some more food at the 25 mile rest stop. As I was still eating a bagel (I’m a slow eater) I didn’t realize that half the people left and were on their way again. So that kinda sucked- I need to pay more attention to that next time! James was nice and waited for me a little bit. Thanks James!

The second half of the course was definitely a lot hillier than the first. We are in VT after all! At about the 40 mile mark I had doubts of being able to complete the whole century because I was so cold and frozen. Once we got back to the starting point and regrouped and got more food and a tiny bit of coffee to warm my body up, I changed into dry clothes and put on some hot muscle gel stuff on my thighs. That seemed to help. I told myself I needed to finish the century since that’s what I came there do to. I didn’t come to ride 50, I came to ride 100!

The first few miles of the second lap I wasn’t feeling too great and Vinnie gave me some more goo and helped me out a bit by giving me a few pushes. Vinnie is the most entertaining person you will ever ride with! Once I was back into the group after about 10 min or so I found a great spot where I cruised very easily. I felt great at this point. We got to the 25 mile mark (now 75) and got more food. The last 25 miles were the worst. It was definitely sunnier out during the second lap but it started to get windier at this point. I reached the 90 mile mark and it seemed to be forever before I got to 95. Oh and my computer broke about 4 hours earlier which kinda sucked because I didn’t really know how far I had left until I hit the signs for the course. But I finally finished around 3:50 pm.

We ended up doing the whole thing in about 6 ½ hours. Minus around 35-50 minutes of resting/eating/changing clothes. So the average speed was 17-17.8 mph. Not bad. We didn't try to go hard at all, we just wanted to keep the pace real easy and enjoy ourselves. There were raffles and a barbeque after. We were all exhausted and ready to head back to Burlington.

Totals:
-100 miles
-4 power bars, 3 Gus, 3 bananas, 1 bagel, nut mixes, peanut butter, some coffee, lots and lots of water mixed with electrolyte powder, some Gatorade

Things I learned:
1. There is no such thing as too many layers when it is cold and rainy
2. I need booties
3. Don’t take too long at rest stops because then you loose the main group and don’t have as good of draft
4. I learned to like Gu

This ride concluded a 200 mile week!

I will hopefully have some pictures up soon!