Harvest Century the Ride, Part 2…

The first rest stop was in Lyda, 12 miles into the ride.  Because I drank so much early in the morning, I really needed to use the bathroom.  My bladder was full and it was uncomfortable riding.  Fortunately I made it without any accidents, and after relieving myself I went to check out the rest stop goodies.  I filled up on plenty of PBJ bagel sandwiches, bananas and liquids.  I was feeling all right with my body and my time, so looked forward to continuing on to the next rest stop 13 miles further at Montinore Vineyards.  As I continued with my ride, there were more and more cyclists appearing from behind and zooming past me.  I just could not get a good pace going and my bike felt so sluggish.  It was disappointing and on the verge of disheartening.  Additionally, I was desperate for another restoom break.

I survived both ordeals and rolled into the next rest stop by 9:45am and filled up on cookies, more PBJ and more drinks.  By this time it was warm enough for me to shed my gloves and my wind jacket for the next 12 miles.  However, before I left I decided to make a visit to the road repair tent.  My gears were shifting on me without my permission, so Brian from Velofix took a look and made some quick adjustments to my gears.  He also noticed that my tires were a bit under inflated.  Well, more like very very under inflated.  The air in both tires should have been at 80 PSI.  I rode both for the first 25 miles on 10 PSI.  Yikes!  By touch the tires felt fine, but without a gauge I couldn’t properly get the right inflation into them.  And thus my ride pretty much sucked with inefficiency for the first 2 hours of my ride.

I left Montimore around 10:20am and rolled into my lunch stop and hour later at Ewing Young Elementary.  This food stop was a little disappointing, as the turkey sandwich and pasta salad was a little lacking.  They had a few more snack items, but nothing as exciting was what I encountered on my first two rest stops.  I wasn’t really hungry, so it wasn’t a big deal.  What was a big deal though was when I saw the 100 mile sweep cyclist come in.  This is the person who makes sure that any person attempting the 100 mile century ride be within the proper time frame.  Had I opted for the century ride, this was my reality check that I would not make it back in time to the finish.  So it was the 73-mile ride that was my destiny instead.

The 73-mile ride had one big obstacle however — the hill.  Not just a small hill, something more like a mountain.  I am normally pretty good on hills, as I take it pretty slow and steady.  However, both of my knees were experiences pain near the kneecap and underneath my kneecap.  Plus my right achilles was hurting.  This made the 12 mile ride to the final rest stop at Edy Ride the most painful, grueling and longest part of my day.  I left the lunch stop at 11:45am and it took me almost 2 hours to reach my final rest stop.  Along the way, I made multiple stops to stretch my legs to ebb the pain.  I also walked up a few times and that helped.  Not in my overall time, mind you, but in the overall health in my legs.  I was not tired at all — it was just my muscles were totally taxed because I haven’t ridden this far in so long.  I kept the slow and steady and eventually made it to the final rest stop at mile 51 around 1:30pm.  I spent a good amount of time eating and drinking and of course stretching.  And this whole time there came and went more and more of the century riders — whew!  So glad I didn’t do the 100 miles.  73 miles was just enough for me.  And for my final 22 miles I again took my time, enjoyed the scenery and hoped that my muscles and pain threshold would hold on.  And in the end, I arrived to the finish line near 4pm, almost 9 hours later than when I started.  I survived and lived to tell about it, hooray!  Thanks for a great ride Harvest Century!

Harvest Century the Ride, Part 1:

Early morning wake up at 5:30am, out to the start line by 6:45am.  I did some stretching, had some granola and other morning snacks, and finally launched from the start line at 7:15am.  My original plan was to leave at 6:30am to make the most of my day, especially if I was going to attempt the 100 mile route option.  But I’m glad I didn’t.  6:30am was a little on the cold side and there wasn’t much light, whereas 7:15am had more light and with sun’s rays were peeking out at the right moment to give me a little warmth.

My ride started at a controlled, slow pace.  The bicycle I was using was given to me by Dan a few years ago, and I have honestly only ridden it three other times, and none of those times over a 75 mile distance.  I wanted to ease into the ride and check the shifting and gears and just get used the how it felt on my body.  The first rest stop was only 12 miles away, and while I started out pretty much alone and by myself, by the time I reached the rest stop one hour later, at least 50 other cyclists had already passed me.  Total number of cyclists I passed:  zero.

For some reason, I couldn’t get the speed I wanted out the bike.  I did have two pannier bags attached to my rear rack, but I only had shoes, an extra water and some other small items in there, so that was less than 5 pounds of extra weight.  My bike is equipped with 27 speeds, but my front gear couldn’t shift into the power gear, so I had to make due with granny gear and the medium one, which was fine, because the medium gear is the one I usually use.  Despite my feeling that I wasn’t going that fast, I still managed to get to the rest stop within the hour — so an average of twelve miles an hour.  If I kept this up, I should conceivable finish the 73-mile course in 6 hours — or around 1:15pm.  Well, that was not to be the case at all… to be continued….