This was a long day, starting at 3:45 am when the alarm went off in my brain. The instructions said to be at Penn Station no later than 4:30 to load the bikes and head out to Long Island at 5:30. With a "fast pass" wristband that had arrived in the mail, all I had to do was pedal over from midtown east to near Madison Square Garden to put my bike in the truck and try and get back to sleep on the bus.
The trip out to the Northfork area took about two hours and after filling the water bottles and dropping off my bag of clean clothes for later, I started riding at 8:15 am. and I think that the temperature was about 80 with 90% humidity and a strong sun. By 11:00 am, the humdity had dropped somewhat but the temperature was up around 85 or so and a blessed high cloud cover drifted in from the north, giving some relief to all of the riders.
My plan had been to start slow and speed up during the 100 miles, but somehow I got hooked up with some faster, younger riders and we picked up the pace. I was happy to cruise along at 20 mph or so, but the two younger guys were taking faster and faster pulls, until I finally told them that I was going to drop off. (Although they ended up finishing about 45 minutes after I did, so they probably could have just backed off their pace a bit and we could have stuck together.)
During that first ninty minutes, I really shouldn't have gotten my heartrate up past 160, but saved that for the later stages of the ride. By the end of the second hour, at around forty miles, I felt my radiator was about to blow and backed off a bit. It was not a smart ride and the last three and a half hours were fast but not pleasant.
The final numbers were 100.3 miles in 5:48 with a moving average of 17.3 mph. Total calories burned was 6391 and an average heartrate of 145.
After the first hour or so riding with the group, I was solo for the last five hours. So, after the first rest stop I pulled over, put on my headphones and listened to music for the rest of the ride. Not the best and it really would have been better to have been in a big group, moving along at 20 mph, sharing pulls and breaking the wind. This was a perfect ride for working together in a pelaton, but yesterday was not the day.
In hindsight, I probably should have pulled into the Blue Tavern at 99.5 miles as the route was about to finish going through Greenport. This was the restaurant where I'd recovered after the ride two years ago, but this time I wanted to get to 100 miles and also to try for the early vans heading back to Manhattan. However, the vans were filled and the organization for returning not all that clear, so I ended up waiting from 3:15 until after 6:00 pm for the buses to leave for the long ride home.
Although I had been drinking about 22 ounces of fluids with electrolytes every hour (one water bottle), I polished off another four water bottles of iced tea after arriving. I'm sure that the last half of the ride was so tough due to dehydration. Again, not the smartest ride.
The best part of the ride was the wine tasting at 89 miles. There were little shot-cups of Merlot and Reisling and I took three while talking with some other riders as we rested up for the last 11 miles. Not enough for a buzz, but with reduced glycogen stores, I think that the "glycohol" went straight to some aching muscles and the application of alcohol internally made the final push to the finish that much easier to bear.
But, this might be my last time to do this ride. The time of year is not great temperature-wise. The day is really long if you don't have your own car and the food this year was abysmal. I particularly don't like to wait so long after the ride is over to head home, particularly since I had pushed the whole day and then missed out for a seat in the early vans because some of the riders had gone a shorter distance and finished earlier. They should have set aside some seats in the vans for the Century riders who finished first so that we could get back after a long, hot day.
