Century Ride

My Saturday ride was a new all time single high for a mileage day.  I was originally scheduled for a two hour ride with a 30 minute run off the bike.  However, we were up at our lake cottage for the weekend and the group the local bike group that I enjoy riding with was doing a longer training ride that day so I joined.  They were planning 90 miles in preparation for the RAIN (ride across Indiana) ride.  This is a ride on July 13th that is a one day ride primarily across US 40 from Terre Haute to Richmond for a total of over 160 miles.  It is a ride that I have full intention to do some day but unfortunately this year it conflicts with my Muncie half-ironman otherwise it would be a good training day.  I would also really enjoy the last 50 miles or so of US 40 trek as it would take me back to my youth when we traveled the route to visit my grandmother.  I remember trying diligently to recount the order of the many small towns along the route as we proceeded.  I digress.  The ride was a great.  It was a mind stimulating mix of terrain and scenes. We road the flat lands of the northern Indiana crop belt, the hills of the Wabash river valley, crossed a covered bridge by an old water driven saw mill, and even did a stint in the wind farm outside of Brookston.  As we rolled back into Monticello to finish their 90 miles of training, I was feeling good. Besides the warm temps and up tempo rides to finish, I felt I had to push on to claim my first 100 mile trek on a bike.  I closed out the mileage on the extended route back to the cottage.  So, just over 5 hours later I was back with a quick change and off to knock out my run obligation.  It was a rather forceful 3 mile jog with some tighter than normal legs but completed as planned.  wooo hoooo




Century rides for cyclists are rides of pride and full of accomplishment.  For myself to knock this out gave rise to my hopes to my process for making the Ironman.  Then again that reality quickly crept in as well during the 3 miles.  When I contemplated that race day gives me 12 more bike miles and then even a more staggering 23.2 more additional running miles, I began to understand even more the task at hand.  Its going to be a really long day on August 25th.  Oh well, its important to celebrate the progress steps too.