Tim's Century bike ride, 10/31/2009

Habitat Halloween Century in Durham, starting at Durham Bulls stadium and heading into countryside north of Durham. Weather was comfortable, a light misting rain (with accompanying road grit) for the first ~4 hours, eventually clearing with warm and humid conditions (but dry roads) for the last ~3 hours.

Thomas, Adam and I took the ride at reasonably comfortable pace, completing the Century in 5:55 riding time (16.9 mph average speed). My legs never had much zip, and I was at comparable strength to Thomas and Adam (although Thomas was probably the strongest of us three). Felt like strength-tiredness was my limiting factor. My legs were feeling pretty tired going into the last 25 miles, and we traded pulls for most of the way back, into a vicious headwind. Eventually some of my pulls were quite slow compared to Thomas and Adam, but in the last few miles I had more in the tank than either of them, probably because I had conserved (and really had had no other option).

We stopped at all but the first and last rest-stops, for food and restroom use. I ate one gel and one powerbar during the event, but mostly subsisted on sports-drink (with some soy protein powder mixed in to ward off catabolic muscle breakdown), and pbj sandwiches and rice crispie treats from the rest stops. I found that I didn't need to drink much during the ride, I suppose because I didn't sweat much (despite drinking about 1 bottle per hour, I was still pissing clear). And I had zero cramping problems. Very different than Death Valley!

There was plenty to eat at the finish, and I also mixed my remaining soy protein powder with milk, and after we biked back to Thomas' house I had whey protein mixed with milk.

I'd been planning to take the Robertson bus from Duke back to Chapel Hill, but because of Halloween they stopped service after 4:30. Which they didn't note in the normal place on the website, instead opting to post flyers at the bus stop. Because of course students who take the bus, when planning ahead, will check for flyers instead of the webpage. Ugh.
So I had to bike back from Durham to Chapel Hill, which actually went fine and pretty comfortably. More recovery drink with bananas at home, and dinner, then wandering around for Halloween.

Between biking between Thomas' house and the event start/finish, and then back to Chapel Hill, I biked about 118 miles (averaging 16.4 mph) on the day, over 7 hours in the saddle. This is my longest single-day mileage (although not my longest in a 24-hour period, which was the Whitney Classic overnight ride).
But my week's total of 165 miles is my most in a 7-day period since 1995 (when I put in ~500 miles in the first two weeks after getting a new bike.