Sea Gull Century

My first century is done and in the books - and other than some pain walking downstairs and being incredibly tired, I feel surprisingly good. This was a goal I'd set in 2007, and didn't get around to, so I was excited to have beautiful weather to try and hit the distance this year. The last 7 or 8wks of slacking on training meant that I was pretty nervous going into this. The longest ride I've ever done was 64miles, and that was this past July before Rhode Island 70.3, so this was going to be a huge jump in terms of distance and challenge. I warned Stuart that we might be creeping along at a snail's pace, but after last week's AquaVelo he said he was ready for a long easy pre-Ironman ride and so promised to stay with me.

We got a much later start than planned - it was a long drive to Salisbury so we didn't actually mount our bikes until 8:45 (last riders had to be on the road by 9am). On the advice of some friends, I chose to bring Coraggio - my red Giant road bike. I felt strong the first 22miles to the first rest stop but realized I'd had little to drink during that hour +. So we took the time to drink some gatorade, grab some orange sections, and then refill the water bottles for the second leg. The rest stop was pretty, off the main road at a state park along the water.

It really was a social occasion! Miles 20-40 we ended up chatting with some guys down from New Jersey, and the group of them pulled me along at 18+mph until I finally admitted that I was pushing too hard so we let them ride off. We hit that second rest stop in a little over an hour and Stuart commented on how hard I was riding. He was saying it as if impressed, but it made me worried that I was going to blow up with thirty or forty miles to go, and vowed to back it off on the next leg until the "lunch stop" at mile 60-ish. We left that stop along with a guy in a Booz Allen jersey riding a fixie! It was his birthday so he also had a birthday hat on top of his helmet and a mp3 player with speakers in a pannier on his bike. He, his dad (the BAH employee) and his girlfriend were making a day of it. We rode together for a while, but then surged ahead.

As we hit the one "hill" on this incredibly flat ride - the bridge to Assateague Island - we ran into a DC Tri clubmate and rode with him for a while. This was the most beautiful part of the day, and we stopped on the bridge to take a few photos.

Turns out the lunch stop was a bit of a bust. Oranges, cookies, and some bread in addition to water and gatorade. I'd been imagining a ham sandwich or something. Oh well, I consoled myself with the thought that I was feeling amazingly good. My girly-bits weren't hurting, and I was just a few miles shy of my longest ride ever. I knew I was going to do it.

After the disappointment of "lunch", we looked forward to the rest stop at mile 83 (where they served some yummy pie and ice cream!). From there we knew it was less than 20miles to the finish, but I told Stuart that the day was getting to me and we needed to take it easy so I didn't die during this last hour. But then with about 8miles to go we hooked on the back end of a pace line and just let it rip. It was fun to red-line it, and see if I could hang on with these guys, and even more fun to succeed at it!

I know it wasn't a race, but still figured that my average speed would be a good indicator of how well I was doing, so I was very pleased to see that we did the entire ride in sub-6, averaging 17mph. Considering I was hoping to average 15 over that distance - I'm excited by how strong I felt out there.

The one bummer of the day was that we didn't get to meet up with Trifueler extraordinaire Anton- who apparently left his mobile phone at home so we couldn't hook up at the finish line. A fun day, but not sure I'd do this ride again. Long day's drive, and other than the one bridge, it wasn't as beautiful of a ride as I'd expected. Nice riding, but the scenery was nothing special. On the up side, it was a wonderful experience to share with Stuart. To ride easily and just talk for hours with nowhere else to be.