Having done the inclement weather Minnesota Ironman century ride earlier this spring, I felt quite relieved (and slightly disoriented) to be doing a century ride in nice weather. It ended up being a beautiful day with a little more wind than I was hoping for….stupid flat cornfields!
I had two goals for the day - 1) finish it under six hours of riding (average better than 16.6mph), and 2) ride solo as much as possible.
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| The start of a beautiful day |
Both of my previous centuries were with other people, and it’s such an advantage to ride with other people. You work together as drafting partners, you help each other through the tough patches, and you help keep each other’s minds occupied during some of the boring stretches. Something about doing it on my own was enticing, I think I just wanted to know what it was like to have stay motivated and fight the wind and boredom on my own.
We checked in (Anna waited a bit and did the 25 mile route with some of my in-laws) and then I took off. The early part of the ride was beautiful. Tree covered roads, enough turns and hills to keep it interesting, and some cool houses along the way. I just rode how I felt to the first check point (~18 miles) a little quicker than I was hoping that early on.
First checkpoint…18 miles at 18.9mph.
At the first check point I ran into a guy, Mattias, who rides some of the Saturday morning rides with the bike shop, and I rode to the next 30 miles with them. Since my goal was to ride solo as much as possible, I stayed on the front as much as I could. They felt bad and pulled took some turns in the wind, but I think I only had true drafting for about 4 miles in that group.
Second checkpoint…35 miles at 18.2mph.
About 15 miles after the second checkpoint, the route for the 64/75 mile routes split off and that group turned to go the shorter route, so I was back on my own. I had a nice tailwind thankfully, and was rolling along at about 22-23 mph down Middleton road for a stretch without much work. The group I had been riding with was going a little slower than I wanted, but I think that was a blessing in disguise for me to conserve more energy.
This part of the route was right by Anna’s grandparents’ house, so I knew the area well. A couple in front of me took a turn that wasn’t part of the route, so I pulled out my map to make sure I knew what was coming. Sure enough the directions on the course had you turn down a different road than the map showed. I didn’t think much of it at that time, but the route was marked so I went with it. It turned into the wind, which was a little rough.
Third checkpoint….58 miles at 17.7mph.
By now it was starting to get a bit warm – it was 80 with a glaring sun in the open cornfields, and the wind was 10-15mph out of the East-Southeast with gusts up to 20mph. Unfortunately the pretty part of the ride was over, and we were in the cornfields with straight farm section roads – mile increments. The shorter routes (64/75) met up with the longer routes (100/124) again at this checkpoint, so there were plenty of people on the road when I left the checkpoint. Unfortunately the shorter routes split off again fairly soon, and the road got very lonely. There was a couple that passed me and stayed within a quarter mile, so they were a nice little carrot to keep me going.
We hit a turn about 5 miles from the last checkpoint that went up a hill into the wind right at about 75 miles into the ride. That was one of two low points for me – but I just put my head down and pedaled through it.
Fourth checkpoint…79 miles at 17.5mph.
I took a little longer break at the last checkpoint knowing that the final section was going to be mostly right into the Eastern wind. The last section started heading west two miles, which meant another two miles into the wind….great. There was nice little length of road down Barber Greene into the wind and the course weaved its way up to Ellithorpe Road which was a five mile stretch straight into the wind. My legs were shot at this point, and it was everything I had to go 14-15mph. My back was tight, I was hot, a red-winged blackbird buzzed me twice, and I just wanted to be done. Thankfully I was passing slower cyclists at this point, which kept me motivated that last section.
I don’t know why, but it seems like century rides always like to end on a hill just for fun…cruel. I noticed that as I was getting close to the finish, my mileage wasn’t still a little short of 100. When I got back to the parking lot, I noticed I was at 98.4. I checked the mileage difference on the route change that I mentioned earlier, and it was exactly 1.6 miles. That was irritating. I thought about going out and riding an extra 1.6 miles to finish off the 100 cleanly, but the school where the ride started is the highest point in the county…meaning I would have to do another brutal uphill. The pool sounded better to me at that point, so I opted for a 98.4 mile ride and a pool.
Finish…98.4 miles at 17.3mph.
My first goal was to finish the 100 mile ride in less than six hour. I rode 98.4 miles in 5:40:00, which extrapolates to a 5:45 finish for the 100 mile ride. Unfortunately I can’t claim I did the full 100 mile in under six hours, but I’m pretty confident I would have completed the last 1.4 miles within the 20 minutes I had left, so I’m very pleased with that.
My second goal was to ride as much as possible solo. I road 68 miles solo, and about 95% of the whole ride was non-drafting. It definitely got lonely out around miles 65-80, but I feel like I have gone through some rite of passage for doing a century ride on my own. It makes me feel stronger and makes me want to do it again and do better. It is definitely encouraging to have people to ride with – there’s something about suffering together and carrying each other through that is so important.
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