First 70 miler!!!

Did my first 70 plus miler yesterday. (little over 71 miles) Recently I have been doing 42 miles the past three weekends and have been pushing myself real hard on those rides. I thought jumping up to 71 would be ok, enough for me to handle. WRONG!!!

I started out and the first 35.5 miles was way too fast. I let my competitive nature, ego, whatever you call it, get in the way and I didn't want anyone to pass me. (I was riding on the WO&D Trail that goes from DC to Purceville - lots of riders/runners. Purceville is the turnaround and there is a nice bike shop there were everyone re-fuels etc. The whole trail is about 45.5 miles one way, I started around mile 9 or so) So this one guy blows by me and I try to keep up but he was gone. Later in the ride, about 20 miles into it, this other dude on a nice aerobike by Elite wizzed past me. I tried staying on his wheel but he got too far ahead. I finally caught up to him about 10 minutes later and zoom past him: confidence lifted! I kept pushing it until about 5 miles or so from Purceville. I got a flat! My first ever flat, that I knew I wasn't going to have that day. And I had no experience in changing the tire, rear tire at that! This one guy stops and helps me out, basically changes it for me, showing me every little detail. We get started and asks me to pull for him. I'm thinking I was going to drop him and after pulling for about 3 minutes, he blows by me and I realize this dude was no joke. It took all I had to keep up, but as soon as I got behind his draft I was ok. We did this until a mile before the turnaround where he turned off to go home. I got to the bike shop wasted!!! I spend about 15 minutes or so refueling and then I take off back down the trail toward DC. I tell myself to take it easy which I sorta did. I made sure to push it on the down hills but easy on the flats and uphills. About midway through I guess I hit a wall - BONKED! If this was the Tour de France or Ironman, I woulda lost the race or DNF'd. I still had about 20 miles to go, plus the sun started to blaze.

A few times I wanted to pull over and rest but I didn't and sucked it up and finished strong. I never felt faint or anything, mostly just really tired legs, achey back and my balls were hurting big time-still not used to sitting on that skinny bike seat!

I didn't think it was going to end but it did and I realized I should have thought this out a little more than I did. Atleast my family and I were going to go eat some good seafood after I got back, which was 2 hours later than expected!