1ST CENTURY RIDE

Well I did it, or I should say we did it. Jeff and I rode our 1st century. We both had set that as goal at the beginning of the year and yesterday we did it. We started at about 0745 at the Rose Lake trailhead on the Trail of the Couer D' Alenes. This is a converted railroad grade, so it is very flat. The only hill is a 3% grade that is 7 miles long. That hill started at about mile 27 for us. We took a couple of short breaks one at 34 miles, another at 53 mile. At the 53 mile point I thought there was no way I was going to be able to to it. My thighs were burning in a way that I had never experienced before. I think this was due to a few factors, one was that my 10 mile run on sunday had been pretty tough for me and I did not follow my normal recovery routine. The other big factor is that I have not been spending enough time on the bike and to this point this year the longest ride had been 48 miles. At the 68 mile point we took a longer lunch break and accessed the situation. Jeff felt good and was willing to go for it. I on the other hand was not as eager to push on. But I did feel tha I could go maybe 6 miles out then back and that would give us 80 miles. And I started using analogy with the 100 miles representing a 100% grade ie A+ and that we, 68 miles had a D+ and that was not good enough. But I rationalize, that if we made to 80 that would be a B and that was good enough. So we started out, but when we got tot the 6 mile point I felt ok so we kept going. Then got into the A catagory and by then we just had to go for it. And when we turn around we were cranking along really well. In the end it turned out that the last 30 miles were some of our strongest miles. Total ride time 5 hr 47 min 7 sec. average 17 mph. It was king of funny my bike computer actually had us at 98.88 miles and jeff's had us at 101.5 so we split the difference and called it an even 100. As I write this my knees are a littke sore and my legs in general feel like they did something but all in all I feel good. I must say the Serotta is the sweetest bike. I do want to make a couple of tweaks to my aerobars I think I bent over to much because my neck is killing me. Next goal,100 miles with some hills.