100

100.3 miles on a bike.  I can't say that I ever wanted to do a century ride but since a friend of mine couldn't ride on Sunday, she asked if I wanted to ride in her place.  Why not?  How bad could it be, right?  After all, it's not a race, just a nice looooonnnngggg ride.  No race number. No timing chip.  And I had 11 hours to complete it.  So, I decided to give it a shot with the only reservation I had being that I hadn't ridden more than 60 miles in one sitting.  What's another 40?  The kicker?  It's NBW's Flattest Century in the East!  Now let's dissect the title of this ride.  Like an arrow to a target, I'm sure everyone's attention is automatically drawn to the word "FLAT" not bothering to consider the rest of the description.  "IN THE EAST".  We're not in Texas, folks and this course was not flat.  At least not as it's defined by my dictionary.  Yeah, it certainly wasn't a Lake Placid course but it had it's share of inclines.  More than I expected and more than I wanted.  I even got to a point where going downhill felt like I was going up.  Ugh. Maybe it was that extra 40 miles that put me over the edge because around mile 75, I was ready to throw in the towel.  But I didn't.  I figured it would take just as long to wait for a SAG wagon to pick me up than to to finish.  After all, I could take my time.

It's not a race, it's a ride.  After racing for 2 years, it's hard to get that mentality out of your head so around mile 50 when I stopped at the fuel station to relieve myself (hurry, hurry, hurry!), I looked around and saw people eating, sitting, stretching, talking on the phone, chatting...taking their time.  Then I think to myself, "God woman, simma down now! What are you doing? You're racing against no one and nothing!  Take it easy, you've got another 50 miles to go!"  So my 17 mph for the first half split went down to 15.5 mph total average. 

And why do some team riders have to be assholes?  On several occasions, they wouldn't announce themselves passing so close to me on my left that if I waivered even a little bit, I would have knudged a body part.  Not to mention when they do pass, they don't wait until they're completely past me before moving over, causing me to brake so I don't tick their back tire.  It's bad enough that their wake alone is enough to blow me off the road, they're going so fast.  I know, I know, give 'em a break. They're working so hard drafting the entire 100 miles.

Besides the constant snot rockets that I feared would find me as a target, the only real trouble I had during my ride was my aching back and neck from holding my head up.  When will someone invent some contraption so that I can simply rest my head?  Like at the eye doctor when you have to rest your chin in the little cup.  Yeah, that's all I needed.  Nice and comfy.  And let's talk about the Chamois butt'r.  This was my first experience with it.  The directions say "use liberally".  Right off the bat I'm confused.  Does this mean use the whole tub?  I didn't think so but let me tell you, I used it liberally. I felt like I crapped my pants.  Maybe too much?  So not only do I have all that swooshing around down there, I can't keep my privates in place and I had to constantly lift off the seat to "adjust" and I'm sure I had butt'r cream oozing out of my shorts somewhere.  TMI maybe.  I still can't figure out how men do it.  And now that it's all over, I'm fairly confident that my private parts will no longer function.

I was certainly glad when it was over.  I just wanted to get the hell off that bike!  Next step when it was done, figure out how to kick my leg over the seat without falling over... And how, for the love of cosmos, did I manage to gain a pound this weekend after burning 4904 calories???