My first 110

I have successfully completed my first 110 mile bike ride. It was the Placid Planet Century ride. Why 110, then, you ask? I'll explain later.

Sunday did not start out well. In a moment of brilliance the night before I'd decided to have two Caribbean Cowboy painkillers, paint my fingernails a striking magenta color and not stretch out for a good thirty minutes. Or ride my warm-up 15 miles on my periwinkle blue (admittedly it's a little girlier than periwinkle, but that's marketing for you).

I woke up at 5 am and thought to myself, well... I could just do the fifty. Get some more sleep in... feel more refreshed. My stomach was unhappy about the various kinds of rum I'd put in my body the night before and I was almost certain it would reject food if I tried to choke some down. 7:15 am, T-45 minutes before the ride, a friend convinced me that I really out to get my ass out of bed and do the 100. I did pay $35 bucks and it would be quite the feat. I pulled myself out of bed, threw on my shorts, my favorite bike jersey-- a bright pink Louis Garneau, ate an energy for a quick pre-breakfast and sped off to Lake Placid Health and Fitness for the start.

I felt like the lone amateur in a crowd of Ironman and racing vets, clad in their fanciful team jersey/shorts combos. I might have been one of the few with a mismatched jersey and shorts but you know what? My fingernails were painted magenta to match my jersey, which is more than I can say for them. Suck on that Team Placid Planet. So I was a bit self-conscious riding with a bunch of hammerheads who will ultimately bike 100 miles in five hours. "Pacing yourself" to them means 20 mph average speed. Christ.

Still apprehensive amongst the leagues of team jerseys I moved toward the back of the pack as we set out both intentionally and unintentionally. A. I'm not as fast as those guys and B. I didn't want to push it too hard at the start.

The weather was gorgeous-- cool to start and warmed up to a sultry 72 degrees by mid day. We started off going downhill toward Wilmington and it's really nice to get a tailwind on the gradual slope. I mowed on some peanut butter fluff sandwiches on Wonderbread at the first aid station 20 miles in. It's hard to believe the first 1/4 of the century took a little more than an hour. I made it to the second feed station in Peru by noontime, feeling good. The route had taken me on some rolling back roads with a good ratio of climbs/decents. Decents got the edge. Peru was the lowest part of the trip and naturally the second half of the day involved climbing.

I met a nice older guy named Dan who wanted to take it easy as well at the second feed station and we hung in with each other through the next twenty or so miles. After a while he just dusted me. I guess a former racer like himself might get a little annoyed/bored with a slow rider like me.

The last 30 miles were total agony. Between the pressure on my cooch for an extended amount of time, my decreasing abdominal strength and subsequent back/arm/neck pain from resting my weight on the handlebars, I was done. I was alone on the long sweeping climbs between Hawkeye and Blackbrook but climbed them steadily stopping a few times to call someone for moral support. I suppressed whimpers and sobs of pain and exhaustion. I routinely tried to shake my arms and shoulders loose, mostly failing.

By the time I arrived at the last feed station the sag-wagon guy was packing up to go look for me. I was moving slowly but steadily between 7 and 15 miles per hour depending on the terrain. I pulled over and was so overwhelmed by relief/other mixed emotions/trauma that I could barely pull together the will to speak. They gave me cookies and a banana to eat and lots of water. He promised he'd stop at pull offs and wait for me to pass before moving on to the next.

I pressed onward. Lots more elevation to go riding through the notch. I prayed for a tailwind. Much of it is gradual from Whiteface to Riverside Drive and if you have a strong enough wind on your side it's pretty much a coast. Somehow, I mustered some extra energy and ignored my ailing back and shoulders and carried my ass all the way into Lake Placid.

Once I reached Northwoods Road, the last of the mega-climbs I knew I'd make it. I patiently ascended the last of the hills toward the gym and rolled in at exactly 6 pm, streaked with grit, sunblock and bike grease. My cheeks were encrusted with salt where my sunglasses had collected sweat over the last ten hours. I'd failed to put sunblock on my fingers so I had a lovely bike glove sunburn. I rode straight by the last aid guys packing up. I sat in my car and mumbled to myself "I did it," over and over like I just might be partially schizophrenic. Then I made some phone calls, put away my bike and drove home, achey and shakey and unsure how to treat my body.

I may have been last but I feel good about that. I made my peace with the concept last year during the mini-triathlons. Most of those guys out there weren't pushing themselves or challenging themselves. They were just going out for a fun ride to keep them in their peak professional conditions. I, on the other hand, set out to finish in ten hours and that's just what I did, rest of the pack be damned. If you subtract my breaks at feed stations and other places probably 9 hours of riding all together. Considering I began road riding last June and just started this year a month or so ago, I am really thrilled with my accomplishment. Most of the people I told called me 'sick' or 'crazy', but they also said they were proud of me.

Today I feel pretty good. Sore, but not as sore as I'd been after climbing Street and Nye. I feel like I could actually run a few miles or god forbid it-- bike a few. Tomorrow I'm planning on riding in Keene Valley so that should be good, hopefully my poor, bruised rear hiney is up for it.

I also plotted an approximate profile for the ride based on actual elevations of the towns I rode through and the major climbs in between that I could remember and estimate elevations for. The last 40 miles are nutso.