First Century Of The Year

My riding buddy Dallas wanted to ride the century route that we had done 2x last year, Saturday a week ago. I was in, as were 6 other guys. So, we had myself, Dallas, Cliff, Randall, Brian, Grady, Russell, Philip in for the ride.

Left at 7am and we ran a nice easy double paceline for the first 25mi. Stopped at a store that Dallas had stopped at yesterday while driving the route and the operators had locked the bathroom and would not let us use it. Not bad for the guys, but I wore bib shorts and needed to take the jersey off in order to get the bibs off. I was sorta pissed cause I NEVER have to pee on a ride, but I did this time and the assholes wouldn't let us. The guys went behind the store....I had to ride over to the tobacco curing barns and take care of business.

But, while waiting for the "person" to come out of the bathroom, Russell said he didn't think we should be stopping every 25mi and he was going to pick the pace up. DH. I could tell that the pace was faster when we started. He doesn't know how to ride in a group. Surging & slowing. Slowing on the declines and surging on the up slopes. Just take it easy up the climbs and the group won't fracture.

I bitched and whined to Dallas and he went and told Russell to ease the pace up and to take the climbs easier. That worked for a little while. Another thing - he can't hold a line worth a shit and no one likes riding behind him. Oh well, enough about him for the moment.

We did pretty well for the next 30mi, reaching another rest stop by 10am (55mi). I was starved by then, as was Randall (and he had already eaten 2 PBJ's). I had up to that point, 2 gels and 1.5 bottles of Perpetuem and 1.5 of water. Randall and I had a cheeseburger, coke & split some Ruffles Cheddar chips. Everyone told us it was a bad idea, but we knew better.

From this point on, we had a headwind and whenever Russell was on the front, my legs were really screaming. I couldn't have cared less about the pace for the ride - I just wanted to finish without hitting the wall at 90mi or cramping. We ended up breaking up into 2 groups - the Russell group and the Dallas (sensible pace) group. Philip started to cramp because he wasn't drinking enough and when he came off the front, we told him to just sit in the draft and rest. He did up until the next rest stop and then got himself into the Russell group....bad idea.

Made it to the next rest stop at 73mi with an 18.7avg. At this point, I was filling my bottles with luke warm water from an outside spigot and then dousing my head & back. The others followed suit. Russell was hell bent on getting started again and said for us to hurry up. Go The F On then. Since Philip had cramped, he should've stayed with the Dallas group, but he didn't.

Dallas pulled for the most part in our group and when he went off, I followed because I was directly behind him. Randall pulled, then off. Then Russell. Then the group split into 5 & 3, as I just could not keep his pace - it was myself, Dallas, & Randall. They left us in the dust on the way to Kenly. When we got to Kenly, Brian had waited on us and the other 4 had gone on. It was good that he did, as he helped Dallas pull.

We have no idea the route the others took, but learned, upon arriving home, that Russell & Cliff dropped Grady & Philip. Grady had dropped Philip. The 4 of us made one more stop for water & Nutter Butters (for me & Randall - we were hungry again!).

So, we finally arrive back to Dallas's house around 2pm (I think) to find just Russell & Cliff. We asked where Grady & Philip were? They shrugged shoulders and said they didn't know. Probably 5-10min later Grady showed up. He was in bad shape.....couldn't really talk and was covered in goosebumps. He was finally able to tell us that Philip was a ways off and cramping up. He finished with 113 miles.

Dallas went off to see if he could find Philip. The rest of us sat around on the carport talking and when Russell left, we talked about him. I told Randall I was not going to ride any long rides if Dallas invited him again. He said Dallas wouldn't be inviting him again and I think this is so.

After all of that ^ I felt pretty dang good. Could of had more food to eat, but I think I did good by starting to hydrate Wednesday and eating well last night. I'm really proud of myself for completing this ride. I've only been really riding for the last month and have done nothing more than 47mi in that time.

I stopped off at Lowes and picked up some french onion dip, Lays Wavy Chips, Jalapeno Doritos & Fresca. I ate some of that while I tried to figure out what I would have for supper and get a shower/cleaned up.......

That's all.