I completed my first century ride today and it was an amazing, albeit, challenging experience. I was very happy to complete it with a ride time of sub-6 hours, but my total time out was about 6h30m as I stopped at multiple SAGs along the way. For the first 40 or so miles I had an amazing tailwind, and even set a top 10 on a 13 mile segment which I was very surprised at. However, turning around and experiencing a block 25 mph headwind from miles 65-90 was terrible. I literally averaged 13 mph for 25 miles and my morale was so destroyed. This ride was part of an event and they had already pre-decided the route, and I thought about changing it up but I wanted to complete what I had set out to do. Luckily, I had a huge tailwind for the last 10 or so miles which was an amazing way to finish.
The biggest things that helped me were carb loading 2 days prior (I ate massive chicken and rice bowls to prep), and also an insane amount of bananas, gatorade, pbj, and clif bars during the ride. Surprisingly, I was never hungry and even had to force down a Clif Bar at mile 85 to ensure I could make it all the way. I ate roughly every 45 minutes and took a swig of my bottles every 5-10 minutes. At mile 60, I left a rest stop and fell when my bike hit a log and scraped my knee pretty good.. At that point I was really second guessing myself, but I’m really glad I kept with it and finished. I was getting sore around that point, too, and two Tylenol were like miracle cures for any pain I was having, which was minimal beyond just ordinary fatigue.
For reference, my second longest ride was a metric century one week prior. I am averaging around 150 miles per week right now and I feel that while it was tough, if you’ve done a metric century, you can do an imperial century. I probably won’t be doing that again for a while, but it was a great experience!
Homers_Harp on
Well done. The first one is the hardest. You’ve got this now.
2 Comments
I completed my first century ride today and it was an amazing, albeit, challenging experience. I was very happy to complete it with a ride time of sub-6 hours, but my total time out was about 6h30m as I stopped at multiple SAGs along the way. For the first 40 or so miles I had an amazing tailwind, and even set a top 10 on a 13 mile segment which I was very surprised at. However, turning around and experiencing a block 25 mph headwind from miles 65-90 was terrible. I literally averaged 13 mph for 25 miles and my morale was so destroyed. This ride was part of an event and they had already pre-decided the route, and I thought about changing it up but I wanted to complete what I had set out to do. Luckily, I had a huge tailwind for the last 10 or so miles which was an amazing way to finish.
The biggest things that helped me were carb loading 2 days prior (I ate massive chicken and rice bowls to prep), and also an insane amount of bananas, gatorade, pbj, and clif bars during the ride. Surprisingly, I was never hungry and even had to force down a Clif Bar at mile 85 to ensure I could make it all the way. I ate roughly every 45 minutes and took a swig of my bottles every 5-10 minutes. At mile 60, I left a rest stop and fell when my bike hit a log and scraped my knee pretty good.. At that point I was really second guessing myself, but I’m really glad I kept with it and finished. I was getting sore around that point, too, and two Tylenol were like miracle cures for any pain I was having, which was minimal beyond just ordinary fatigue.
For reference, my second longest ride was a metric century one week prior. I am averaging around 150 miles per week right now and I feel that while it was tough, if you’ve done a metric century, you can do an imperial century. I probably won’t be doing that again for a while, but it was a great experience!
Well done. The first one is the hardest. You’ve got this now.