Metric Century

Although, technically, not mountain biking and, technically, not a race- I rode in the "Sweat & Spring Century/Metric Century Road Race". This was a local road non-race/race put on by the same local race organizers that have been doing the mountain bike races. This type of ride was a first for me and I've been thinking of doing it for quite a while. My fitness is getting there, but not quite to a full century. I've been hitting around 35-ish miles on my road rides, in about 2-ish hours. I went for the metric- 62 miles total.

There were probably about 30-40 riders of all different abilities and I didn't feel like I stood out too much like a sore thumb. Except for the fact that I was happily donning my full MTB United kit (aside from wearing a long sleeve jersey at the beginning). I had more pre-race jitters than normal, mainly because I didn't know what I was getting myself into. I had ridden 50 some-odd miles with Stitz about a year ago and think I did okay. I stress the okay in that sentence. So, I knew I could do close to that many miles and then would just suck it up at the end if I needed to. Normal pre-race information meeting....

That'd be me to the right of the orange jersey, in black.

Race started and I was in the middle, in a pack of various riders. It reminded me of some MTB races, started out clustered and began to thin out. I picked my own pace, lanes and rode my own race. Ended up on some local roads I'm really familiar with at the beginning. My normal route for road riding, which was nice.

Kept going and it really thinned out, until I met up with a guy who rides the MTB races. Last race series we we're really neck and neck, but he is a much better rider than I am and he would always end up riding faster. We rode together and chatted for a bit, which really ate up the time quickly. He took off, chasing the lead pack and I stayed back knowing full well I could hang with him; but would blow out pretty quickly.

Great support on this race, every 15 miles there was an aid station with all kinds of goodies. All you could eat and drink, along with supplies. It was really comforting knowing that this support would be there and really helped track the mileage. I was yo-yo-ing back and forth with different riders/packs throughout the entire ride, until the end. After the last checkpoint I was feeling beat down pretty bad, with about 10 miles left. I knew this would be the breaking point for me. As a result, a pack of riders took off and I couldn't keep up. There was literally no one around me for miles and I missed a turn, got off track of the route - about 3 miles total. I figured it out pretty quickly and re-routed. By the time I was back on track, I got a brutal muscle cramp in my right thigh and had to really slow down. I was averaging 17 miles an hour and had to go down to 12-13. Still no one around, which was really debilitating.

Made it to the finish, leg killing me and really tired overall. I was happy to have it over and get off the saddle.

Overall, this was a great ride and I'm really happy I did it. I'm now gunning for the full century in the fall.

Total distance, with getting lost (65.7 miles):

Total time (3:57)

Following in the tradition of the Stitz brothers, here are some pics of food I ate- Post-ride grub:

The above pics were of dinner and I finished off my night with late-night snack:

I can honestly say I do not feel guilty at all about eating all of this.