Two Down

Rode the second century of my career today. Best part is it was completely unplanned. I was leading a ride that was scheduled to go 82 miles but we got lost a few times which put us on pace to do 85 miles. At lunch we had 45 miles down and I was feeling great, despite climbing a bunch of hills. I asked the people on our ride if anyone would be interested in doing laps in Central Park when we returned in order to make it a full 100 miles. Two guys agreed. I ended up doing 102.1 miles, my longest ride ever. I actually feel pretty good -- not nearly as beat up as the first time I did it, which was on a much flatter route. Granted, I do have 6k more miles under my belt since my first century.

A few observations. I've always thought the difference between doing 80 miles and 100miles isn't just 20 miles. I mean, it is mathematically, but as far as effort, those last 20 miles are painful. In fact, the amount of physical degradation from miles 80 to 100 is incredible. Let's put it this way. At mile 70 I felt like a million bucks. At mile 80, probably about $900,000. By mile 100, I felt like 50 cents. Parts of your body just start failing. For me today, it was the bottom of my feet. They felt like they were in fire for the last 10 miles.

Anyway, I'm pretty pumped up about the feat. I'm going to kick back and relax now. In fact, I'm not even going to think about the fact that I'm having second thoughts about Waterford now. I'll save that for another post.