Sic Semper Tyrannis

The Century (Full Report)

Today I bring you a report of the second huge accomplishment of the year for yours truly.

Saturday was the cycling century and I finished that mofo! The course was basically from the Children’s Center in Bethany, west to Hinton, and back.

Common questions:
Did your butt hurt? Surprisingly, no.

Was it a race? No. It was an endurance ride, which means there were rest stops every 10-15 miles. Overall, these were the best rest stops I’ve seen with an event like this. The people working them were excited, helpful and they were well-stocked with powerade, water, snacks, medicines, etc.

How long did it take? Time on the bike was 5 hours and 54 minutes. Total time, including rest stops, was about 6.5 to 7 hours. I wound up averaging about a half mph lower than I wanted to.

How was it? I got off to a really fast start. I made a point to get up close to the front at the start, to try to avoid the mass of humanity and find the faster people to try to keep pace with them. This lasted for about the first 20 miles or so. I have found that the field tends to thin out after the first rest stop. And I got passed by a couple pretty disciplined pace lines, which I've yet to learn about, being fairly new and all.

There were two factors that made this ride difficult: the heat (at the end) and the wind. I chose this particular century because the course was largely east/west, banking on the fact that we typically get north-south winds in Oklahoma. In biking, crosswinds are easier to deal with. However, the wind was probably blowing 20-25 mph on Saturday, which made the two jaunts heading south just brutal.

And then, as the morning turned into afternoon and my body started to get mad at me, the temperature rose to the mid 90s. The last rest stop was my longest, as I was getting light-headed and cranky. It felt good to just sit and soak up those big winds blowing across the dusty plains outside of Yukon. I wanted to stay there for the rest of the day.

But I didn’t. I had a goal to meet and I was close enough to push through. The one bummer was that police support at the intersections was mostly a forgotten memory after the halfway point and cruising through Yukon, I and a handful of other people hit every damn red light! You would think a chance to rest would be welcome. It was not. For at every red light my body kept thinking “we’re done! Great!” But we weren’t done. In fact there were still a handful of hot miles to go. I was fading fast.

I finally reached the Children’s Center to one lone anonymous stranger’s half-hearted cheering and immediately found a shady spot on the lawn to collapse. I laid there for a good ten minutes, too tired to care about what I had just done, the muscles in my calves twitching. I guess my legs hadn’t gotten the message that we were done now.

Other than the weather there was one other unexpected difficulty for me on Saturday: fueling. In total I burned something in the neighborhood of 8000 calories doing this thing. Your body has to take in energy to continue as it’s burning at that rate. It’s usually not a problem for me. I’ll have a big breakfast, and take in granola bars and Gatorade to replenish every hour or so. Unfortunately the rest stops didn’t have Gatorade but had Powerade instead. I didn’t know this before Saturday, but Powerade + Heat do not mix well in my stomach. So, the last thing I wanted to do was eat. But like I said, I needed food for energy. Water alone will not cut it. So, I faded at the end because I ran out of gas, not motivation.

So, all in all, a tough day.

One interesting thing I am noticing, though… The residual toll was much tougher on my body when I did the marathon (a scant three and a half months ago.) After the marathon I was literally too sore to walk for about three days.

However, this time, I was ready to ride again the next day, feeling no pain or soreness. This could be due to the fact that I was MUCH more well-prepared for this event, having already done the goal distance plus a few more miles in training.

What’s next?

I plan to keep biking for the next month or so, since I love my new ride so much and to try to become a social creature again. Then I will switch over and try to learn how to run again for the Tulsa Run 15k in Tulsa at the end of October.

It’ll be nice to have Saturday mornings off for awhile!

posted by Mike @ 1:17 PM