Spring Century 6/2004

June 5, 2004
Canby, OR
100m Bike

That's right I finally took the plunge and was all set to attempt my first ever century. Previous to this I'd done a 53 mile bike and just over a month ago I did a metric century which was 64 miles so I thought I am ready to tackle the monster milestone. So grab a snack and read along as Saturday was a day like no other :)

To get you ready for Saturday I first have to give you some background. I attempted a very hilly ride 2 weeks ago and my bike broke down just after the LBS had checked it out, they were very apologetic and swore up and down they'd fixed all of the shifting problems, chain dropping etc, well I took it out on Monday and on the 2nd hill boom there goes my chain so I dismounted, got it back on rode on flats the rest of the time. Stayed off the real bike all week but decided Friday morning I better take it out just to be safe. So early on Friday morning I take it out and no sooner than hill #1, I drop my chain and I can't get it unjammed for like 15 minutes, finally I do but it's bent a little so it lurches and shakes 2 of the 3 miles home. GRRRRRRRRRRRR I was so upset, here it is the day before my big event and my bike is broken again. Preston (DH) had our truck so I loaded the bike into the trunk of the car headed out to work and asked my boss if I could take a 1/2 day off to deal with the bike shop.

I called the manager and explained the situation and just how upset I was about the whole thing since prior to bringing the bike in the first time it worked just fine. So I bring it in and he says come back in an hour to do a test ride. An hour later I come back and he has completely replaced my drive train with Shimano Ultegra parts (nice and super expensive), the bike looks great so I head out in search of a hill. I find one and ride up and down at least 5 or 6 times going through all the gear options and it works awesome!!!!! So I ride back to the LBS, ask how much I owe them and he says it's all free bc it was their fault to begin with. Sweet!

I watched some Tour de France highlights along with the new Lance commercial for some inspiration, packed my gear and had a good dinner before shaving my legs and heading off to bed. Weather forecasts called for showers overnight and then cloudy with more showers in the evening.

Woke up at 5:45 to eat some fruit leather, a 2pt oatmeal raisin cookie and a slice of toast with some PB&J on it. Yum! Got showered, dressed and bottles filled and headed out to pick up Karie (my friend who was doing the Metric Century). We get all her gear loaded and head towards the fairgrounds. The roads are wet but it's not raining yet so I take this as a good sign.

I am wearing my Terry cycling shorts, HRM, sports bra, Louis Garneau sleeveless cycling jersey and a Trek wicking long sleeved shirt plus full fingered gloves, helmet, lucky blue snake socks and Shimano shoes. I have my rain jacket but decide it's not necessary yet.....

Karie and I head out at 7:30am and start riding. Now the course description is completely flat but for 1 brutal hill. So I'm like okay no problem. We ride the first 9 miles together and then our paths diverge so we say goodbye and I head out on my own. The first few miles are fairly flat with a few small rollers which I get up fine because my bike is working great!!! It's still just cloudy as I pull into Stop #1 at mile 22. It's starts to sprinkle and so I pull my rain jacket on, have 1/2 a banana and 1/4 of a Costco muffin (yummy) then decide now's a good time for some vaseline and a restroom break. Get that done and head out. Now I know that the "Killer Hill" is at mile 27 so I ride conservatively to save energy. It starts pouring (think Monsoon weather here) and I have to remove my glasses bc I can't see anything. I am totally and completely soaked at this point, cursing myself for not having fenders on my bike bc my shoes are filled with water and my feet are numb but I press on. As I make the turn onto Bird Road which is home to "Killer Hill" I immediately know that the 10-12% grade of a hill will be impossible for me to tackle so I go to dismount and just walk up it. Unfortunately the road is soooo wet and I am so wet, my foot slips and I topple over, ugh!

Thankfully there was no one behind me and no traffic and so I picked myself up, assesed damage (roadrash on my left hand and right calf and sore hip where I landed but otherwise in one piece). So I start walking up, and up, and everytime I round a corner I think surely this is the top but no the hill lasts over a mile. When I finally get to the top I am mostly laughing to myself about how I'm soaked and I've just "crashed" and still I am pushing my bike up this humongous hill.

I get back on my bike and immediately we have more hills. Now I have to say, I hate hills, under normal circumstances I hate hills but holy mackeral after walking up that huge hill only to be faced with a series of other big hills. I imagine that I am Lance on a tough and rainy training day and up I go. Now science tells us that what goes up must come down and indeed it does. Usually I LOVE the downhills but on a windy country road in monsoon conditions I can honestly tell you I've never been so afraid in my entire life :(

I kept thinking one false move and at these speeds you're roadkill so I lightly tapped my bikes and hung on for dear life. When my speedometer registered 48 MPH I stopped looking as I was almost hysterical at the thought of wiping out on the slick roads. Finally we got to flats again and the rain let up and I started making up some ground lost duing my painfully slow climbs. At this point, I was at about the 40 mile mark when the wind really picked up. Now it's funny how you get what you ask for because the day before I was telling DH that I could deal with wind or rain but not both and sure enough just as soon as the rain stopped the gusty winds started. The wind was probably blowing 10-20 MPH and there were several gusts that literally picked my bike up off the ground (this was when I was thanking the Lord that I weigh 236 bc had I been 136, I would surely have been blown into the ditch). I struggled on towards Stop #2 which was at mile 52. I drank about 32 oz of water, 20 oz of Gatorade and ate a Chocolate Gu but I knew that the combo of wind, rain and hills was really sucking out my will to ride :) After struggling along for 10 miles at speeds of no more than 10MPH I rolled into Stop #2.

At Stop #2 I refilled my water bottle, refilled my Gatorade bottle (I carry my own bc I like the strawberry ice flavor) and literally laid on the ground for about 15 min stretching my back and neck and inspecting the damage from my mini crash. While I was getting some food (pc of watermelon, 3 oatmeal raisin cookies, 1/2 bagel with pb&j) I heard a lot of the cyclists at the stop talking about how they were taking the shortcut back to the starting line bc it was too much for them out there today. They asked me if I wanted to go with them and I was like no way, this is my first century and after all we've been through in the first 52 miles, I am finishing this darn thing. So I checked my messages, stretched some more and loaded another GU and some gum under my shorts elastic and off I went.

Thankfully the wind was finally at my back and I started clocking some great speed (18-20MPH), I stopped to ditch my jacket as it's a little too big and was acting more like a wind sock than a jacket :) At about this point, 2 women rode up next to me and we started chatting about triathlons and WW and I told them about everyone here and we talked about doing IM and cycling and just had a great chat as we pedaled along (Thank you to Dian and Nancy for breaking up miles 52 to 65 for me). The wind had died down and once they left me I sang to myself and thought about all the good things I've accomplished and how awesome it will be to finish this ride given the circumstances. The funny thing about this ride is that they did technically have a time limit. All riders had to be at Stop #3 Mile 71 by 3pm. So I was racing that deadline the whole day. I left Stop #2 at 12:30 so I figured I should be able to go 19 miles in 2.5 hours and sure enough I pulled into Stop #3 at 2:10, woo hoo! I had beat the cut off.

At Stop #3 I finally got to have some fresh strawberries (we'd been riding past fields of them all day), filled my bottle again, stretched a lot as my lower back was really really sore, talked to a few different people about triathlons and all women's events etc, had another 2 cookies and finally shed the long sleeved wicking shirt as I headed out to finish the last 29 miles.

Lots of flat and fast roads with a few rollers but I spent lots of time singing to myself and enjoying the scenery as well as practicing riding in my drops and doing things like applying chapstick while in motion etc. I wasn't really feeling fatigued but my neck and back were pretty sore. I had reapplied some more vaseline at Stop #3 as well bc I detected some chafing when I used the portolet. Ugh! I worked on maintaining my speed 17MPH and eating and drinking every few miles. At mile 85 I took my GU and followed that with 1/2 of my remaining Gatorade. I knew there was one more "killer hill" at mile 89 so I watched for it and when I got to it I decided to walk it instead of risk tipping over again :) So I walked up the Butteville hill, got back on and started pushing hard to get to the end. Once I crossed the 90 mile mark I could taste the finish so I tried to stay loose, focused and go hard to get to the finish.

At mile 96 there is another long hill which as I approached it I was thinking to myself "walk it, you just don't have it in you for another hill" but I geared down and repeated my mantra for the day which is "Slow and Steady wins the race", of course this wasn't a race but it helped me get up the hills throughout the day as well as this final hill. I can see the finish line but looking down at my speedometer I can also see I am at 97.6, well a century is 100 miles and I wasn't cutting this one short so I went on a tour of the town until I crossed the 100 mile mark on my computer and arrived at the finish line.

Total Ride Time: 8 hours 11 min
Total Time: 9 hours 35 min
Total Distance: 100.11 miles
Average Speed: 12.2 MPH

Easily the single greatest accomplishment for me to date, and when I finally crossed the 100 mile mark, the sense of achievement and pride that I had stuck it out despite all the obstacles made me feel really tough!

I hate riding hills, I never ride in the rain or wind and not only did I do both but I did them during a 100 mile bike ride. Plus I tipped over and still I continued. I decided at mile 27 when the rain was the worst and I was facing the biggest hill I'd ever seen and my pride was bruised from tipping over that I wanted this milestone really, really bad. I had some chocolate covered gummi bears as my finish line treat and retreated home to the hot tub where after soaking I had some raviolis and chicken at Spaghetti Factory and promptly fell asleep.

Yesterday was mostly spent relaxing, resting and most importantly getting my rider # engraved on my race milestone bracelet, woo hoo!

Notes for next time: Dry socks at the halfway mark would have been sooooo nice :) Also, this was a great ride, but next year I'm gonna pray for sun :)

So I'm alive, I've joined the Century club and my legs feel really good so I will definitely be ready for the next one :)

Train Hard, Race Fast, Be Safe!
Bonnie