Covington Century Ride for Youth - CycleCentury

well, I started riding at a fairly agressive pace, and thought I could do this thing in about 5.5 hours. I felt good and was cruising along the first 30-40 miles, although my chain was skipping in the climbing gears. I had it adjusted at stop 1, and it still skipped, so they adjusted it again at stop 2. It was a lot better, but still skipped in some gears the rest of the ride. I felt pretty good and was hydrating and eating well. I was getting a bit uncomfortable with my bike position by mile 50. My bike is small for me and I have an "agressive" fit (meaning bad fit). I was still riding pretty well and had about a 17mph avg pace up to mile 70 ish. At that point I started getting some slight cramping issues, but not too terrible and the hills were getting tougher to climb. I tried to compensate by downing gatorade and water, but my stomach just got upset and I could not eat any more gu the rest of the ride. I was either leading, or staying with the pack until about mile 80 when on the fist uphill after the sag stop my legs locked up and started cramping like hell. My hammies were seizing up on me and all I could do was massage my legs and granny gear while standing- it was incredibly painful, and the hot weather just added insult to injury. I considered packing it in at the last sag, but with 8 miles to go I decided to somehow get it done. Those last 8 miles were ougher than the first 50. The cramping was out of control- it took me 50 minutes to go the final 8 miles.
It was a pleasure to ride with Neal, Jonathan, Amy, and Lou most of the way, and other that the last 20 miles of pain I still enjoyed it overall. Lots of good lessons learned.

Get a better fit on my bike, remember to wear my heart rate moniter to keep it in check, remember to bring the endurolytes. T.I.T.S. Dont do an LSD run the day before a century ride (duh!)

Tried to eat spaghetti, talked with Lou and Jonathan. Drank lots of lemonade and water and drove home with the AC on high


Fit, heat, fatigue, little other variables


The volunteers were great. It was frusrating that the sag stops did not have anything but junk food, a pb&j would have beeen great and they were out of Ice at many of them, which happened to be at the latter miles when it was stupid hot out. I did not get a t-shirt even though I paid 35$. he roads were nasty in spots, and there was a section that was not even paved, although next year it will be.