I FINALLY finished a century! Third times the charm! The first century I attempted after only riding for 2 months…I made it 89 miles and then had to quit. The 2nd century was in Sebring, and I made it 94 miles and had to quite. Both times I literally HAD to quite. I didn’t give up, my body did.
Sunday, November 11th, was the South Broward Wheelers annual century. You had two choices, the metric (62 miles) or the full (100 miles). Based on my previous experiences and the fact that I’ve been on this funky diet, I had predetermined that I would only do the metric.
The night before the century I finally ate some solids. I had whole wheat spaghetti with broccoli and tomatoes. I had some cheese and crackers, and drank a lot of water. The day of the century I felt pretty good. I met up with my group and we rode out.
The first 40 miles were a cinch. I don’t remember ever feeling so good! We were riding between 19 and 22mph. For the last 5 miles of the first 40 miles we started riding with this group called “The Love Machine”. Aw man this was an awesome group of riders. So strong!
The 40 mile rest stop is the fork where you decide if you’re going to do the metric or the full century. All of my group was going for the metric, so I hooked up with the love machine for the full. I parted my friends and headed out. During the entire ride I had a very special friend there supporting me, Scarlett. This girl was incredible. She was like my paparazzi and because of her I have 257 photos from the event! She followed our group from rest stop to rest stop just hanging out and taking pictures.
Anyway, we made it to the 60-mile rest stop and refueled. Then we headed out into a headwind north for the big loop. Oh man that wind was horrible! I started getting a little tired there but just kept reminding myself that when we go south it’s going to be a breeze – except it wasn’t. When we made the loop, about 3 or 4 miles into our southbound ride the wind shifted and we were back into a head wind. Oh man it was awful. We were all working so hard. We still maintained 20 mph but it was some serious work.
At the 74 mile mark something happened. My heartrate had stayed pretty steady at around 150 bpm throughout this ride, but at mile 74 it jumped to 190 bpm and my legs turned to spaghetti. I still don’t know why! The only thing I can think of is that maybe I was just over-heated. So I left the group and rode solo for a bit. Dropped it down to 14 mph for the next 6 miles to kind of catch my bearings and bring my heart rate back down.
When I hit the 80 mile rest stop I was ready to throw in my towel, but my friends wouldn’t hear of it. I found some other fellow riders from my other SBW group and decided to join them for the last 20 miles. When we finally got going we were doing pretty good, except my friend Sonia – her brother was a mess. He was covered in salt and was having a hard time. We were riding at about 18mph when suddenly we realized her brother was gone. Sonia and I dropped off the back and stopped. She kept trying to call him, nothing. After about 20 minutes of standing on the side of the road we saw him ride up. He was only doing 11mph and he looked awful! We chaufeured him all the way back to the finish line doing about 13 mph so we wouldn’t lose him. This made the ride a lot longer, but in the end we still made it through to the FINISH!
Once the ride was over, I decided I didn’t want to eat the cold food they had under the tent. Scarlett and I went to an italian restaurant for some real food! I was so tired I was having a hard time reading!
