It has been 2 days since the ride, and I've had a bit of time to digest and mull over my first century. It was a great ride, and a terribly painful experience all at once. The painful part is more or less my fault. I'll get to that in a moment.
First, let me talk about the course. It was okay, but I've ridden better routes. It started just outside of Oxford, OH at a park and went out in 3 separate loops to make the 100 miles. The first two loops totalled a little over 62 miles for the metric century folks. These first two loops were almost entirely flat and we spent 99% of the time staring at rows of corn. It wasn't until the 3rd loop that things started to get hilly. We finally escaped children of the corn hell and got to see some nice scenery as we swept down into some valleys along a creek and back out across some soy bean fields that at least allowed for a view. We rode one nice long descent, some rolling hills, and finally they saved the best for last: a steep climb in the last 5 miles of the ride! It was brutal.
How I brought myself the pain. There is a very simple formula for undoing your training a preparation for a century or any endurance event. Take one excited individual riding said endurance even for the first time. Throw 2 riders in front of him that are a bit above his riding ability for that distance and watch him jump into a line with these two riders and burn up a ridiculous amount of energy and muscle cruising the first 25 miles at speeds between 23 and 25 mph. Speeds at which I would've been thrilled to reach in any one of my duathlons! After a break, while said rider is still feeling fresh, toss in a group of 5 riders that are once again riding at speeds above his ability and watch as her struggles to keep up for 10 miles before fading off the back of the pack. Once you've done this you can sit back and watch as his avg drops from 19.5 mph in the first 25 miles to 18.4 up to the 50 mile mark, and then drift down to 16.1 mph by the end. It is an easy recipe to blow up a silly rider.
There was ass pain, neck pain, and exhaustion in the last 25 miles. I really don't want to focus on that though. Hopefully it will be a lesson learned for my next century ride. I'd rather remember the beautiful, sunny day of riding and meeting some nice people including a couple of great guys from Pennsylvania who I rode with for most of the day.
Odo: 1501.5 miles
Dist: 100.44 miles
Time: 6:13.24
Avg: 16.1 mph
Max: 36.6 mph
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