Thanks one4smoke! Strava says: 103.86 miles (not including continuing the cool down for a bit after ending the ride), 6748 ft of climbing, 161 avg watts (Strava's estimate--my Assioma Duo power-meter pedals had nothing to talk to :() and 6h 35min of riding time (15.8 mi/hr), but the auto pause didn't stay paused apparently while I was eating my lunch as my avg speed went from 14.8 to 14.5mph at 45 miles into the ride. Total Cafe time including wasting time at the first cafe (I went inside to see if there was anything worth putting in my pockets but there wasn't), and stopping periodically (about three times) to figure out which way to go was 56 minutes, though I guess it was over an hour since the clock was rolling for a bit at lunchtime.
I rode from my house in Sheffield, MA to Torrington, CT which is a bit of a depressing town. I failed to find an open cafe and ended up eating McDonald's on a curb. Suffice it to say the first 45 miles were a little discouraging.
As I started out on my ride, I hit START on my Wahoo Elemnt and learned I forgot to charge my battery. Darn, would be nice to know my power output and heartrate for this ride. :(
I recently moved into a house on a road that is a popular cycling route. As soon as I left the driveway two cyclists came up behind me, one I recognized from the B group ride that my brother's bike shop hosts every Tuesday night (except this summer there've been no Berkshire Bike & Board group rides,
which I've sorely missed!) They didn't look very fit, but I thought, well, maybe I can ride with them for a bit. Unfortunately they were going a bit too slow (I realize I should take it easy but my zone 2 power seems to be quite high this summer despite inconsistent training/riding and no training plan since end of last summer). I rode with them for a bit to a local cafe (well, about 12 miles from my house) and did not get anything to eat or drink, it being early in the ride, and then parted ways on my own.
I did not plan for this ride very well, as you can see. At least my Di2 was charged up, but I only had two (2) blocks left in the packet of six (so one third of a shotblok packet). I rely heavily on shotbloks; I swear by them; and hardly ever eat solid food on even longer rides. Fortunately there was a ripe banana and a $50 bill in my wallet. And I remembered my mask.
The secondary roads down to Torrington were nice but it wasn't long before I realized I was riding into a headwind. I did recognize at the time it's better to have a headwind on the first half of the ride than on the return. Boy was I right! (I've had it the exact opposite on previous long rides and boy does that suck).
I didn't have any plan setting out to go to Torrington; that just happened to be where I ended up. The road south from the cafe I don't believe I had ridden on before and I was wondering why I had never ridden on it with anyone in the past. Very shortly I was climbing up a steep, decent length hill (which was followed by another). Not really the most ideal way to start a 100 mile ride.
For context I should mention that last Sunday I rode 80 miles, mostly in a slow group (too much zone 1 power and I was on good legs [something very rare this summer]), but one of the other riders in the group was also antsy and we'd ride hard here and there ahead of the group or wait for it to go away and chase it down. That ride was surprisingly not difficult despite being the longest ride I had ever done up to that point.
Nutrition for the ride: I ate breakfast at around 9:45am which consisted of an English muffin with "Balance" fake butter and 2 eggs, two slices of toast with more fake butter and jam, a bowl of plain, naked oatmeal (nothing at all on it) and a glass of beet juice (from beet juice powder) swigged down right before I set out at 11:00am (supposedly it starts taking effect 2.5 to 3 hours into the ride) and two (plain water) bottles. At about 40 miles I ate the banana. Shortly after that around 45 miles in and around 2:15pm or so I ate lunch at McDs on the curb in Torrington: buttermilk chicken sandwich, fries and a medium coffee with one sugar (no milk) which was surprisingly bleh tasting (apparently about 1000 calories). At about 65 miles I stopped at a gas station and got a choc. brownie cliff bar (I hate cliff bars but all the other options had too much protein and not enough sugar/carbs) and a low sugar (8g) black cold brew can of coffee. I drink coffee less than once a week in general, so these two cups of coffee were really zinging me onward with that tailwind home! On the ride back I'd occasionally find myself perfectly lined up with the tail wind; that sure was nice!
I found myself on some very scenic, quiet roads on the way back with some beautiful falcons flying overhead; stark contrast to the first 55 miles that saw cars whizzing by me much of the time, especially while riding north out of Torrington.
I ate half the cliff bar and decided lunch had staid me well enough that I could transition to the last two shotblocks for the last ~15 miles without having to eat all of the cliff bar. That worked out very well. I turned my bike computer back on around 95 miles or so and was very surprised to see that I was still doing around 200 watts. The computer died about 20 minutes later, still reporting ~200 watts.
I never bonked; pretty much rode steady the entire time. Never surged (last summer I was quite the yoyo rider); and stood out of the saddle on the climbs and moderated my effort when doing so (I recently learned that I can modulate how much power I'm putting down while standing up instead of surging; which is the tendency when I stand). I think the combination of no caffeine until the halfway mark and riding smart really made the difference (and eating right). Last Sunday's 80 mile and today's 103 mile ride were among very few long rides where I wasn't dying at the end. I didn't really experience any bodily discomfort either; no lower back pain, no sore butt, no neck pain; I usually suffer at least two of those on longer rides. (Again, I think standing up frequently throughout the ride helped--for some reason I hardly ever stand up on my rides, but I think from now on I will do it more!) I used to think I didn't need to pay much attention to what I ate before a zone 2 ride (dairy slows me down big time), but even long, slower rides still need the right nutrition (ie. no dairy or heavy foods).
So, yeah, very successful ride! I guess I am a little surprised I am as fit as I am and that soloing 100 miles wasn't more of a struggle with poor power for the last 20 or so miles. During the last 20 miles my legs felt stronger than the rest of the ride (quite surprising!); probably partly due to the chicken mostly being digested by that point and modulating my effort (though I don't really know what my power was or just how consistent I was) I suppose another big factor is that I haven't gone more than 2 weeks without riding since late May 2019 (despite not doing any indoor training over the winter; all the other years that I've ridden a bike I've taken 5 or more months off during the winter and reluctant to arrive Spring). I even felt like I had a little left in the tank when I rolled into my driveway despite my mouth starting to feel parched having recently finished off the last of my two (2) water bottles.
one4smoke I hope that wasn't too much info! How was your first century?