Cider Mill Century Cycling Adventure Recap - 7/29/12

It was a little impromptu, but an endurance buddy needed a last 100 mile for his upcoming IM and invited more to come and suffer with him... 
So I thought it would be a "good idea" to join him and ride a quick 100 miles for my long ride for the weekend.

Ya, 100 miles, 100 degree heat and not really trained up for that distance. Makes sense. I opted to go with my road bike for riding in a crowd, and I wish I would have taken the tri bike. There was a lot less traffic for this ride than I expected and it would have been nice to have the extra aero advantage.

That was suffering I hadn't experience in a while.
We hit the road around 6:45am Sunday.  It was nice that it wasn't a true race and they had aid stations, so there wasn't the normal cramming and anxiousness that comes with races. I loaded up with two large water bottles with sports drink, energy chews, pop tarts and my trusty Garmin.

It was pretty sweet for the first 70ish miles as the clouds were out and the temps were down.  It wasn't near as much suffering when you aren't in 100 degree weather.

But, around noon, that sun popped out and made us wish we headed out earlier.  The last 2 hours were a suffer fest and it was all I could do to hit the aid stations and get back on the bike.  By mile 80 I was cramping in the inner thighs.  I had to walk off some cramps to make it to the end and the rest of the day was spent warding off random cramping sessions.

Nothing is worse that wresting with your 40 pound toddler and you start cramping up.

I did enjoy seeing the unicycle riders, though!

Lessons learned:

1. If someone says, lets do 100 miles and you've only ridden 56 miles for your long ride and that was a month and a half before the century ride, it's ok to stay with them until the 72 mile turn off and cut your day shorter.
2. During the summer, start as soon as possible.  We waited for our entire group, but I wish we would have headed out at 6:15 instead of 6:50.  Even at 35 less minutes in the sun, I would have been thrilled.
3. Hydrate hydrate hydrate.  I drank more water and Gatorade than I can ever remember and I was still very dehydrated when I got home.
4. Bring comfortable clothes to ride in.
5. Sunscreen!  I brought my Skin Strong and it worked great!  No sunburn to go with my near heat stroke.

Would I do it again?  I'm going to have to for IM Lake Tahoe training.  But, I will have more miles under my belt for that and it won't be as impromptu.  I don't think I will be doing any more this year unless I start at 4am!  ;)

But, the real reason I hit that 100 miles was for the sweet pint glass!  Be jealous!