We Are Centurians!

Well, I'm not quite sure what you call it when you complete a century ride (maybe just crazy?) but whatever it's called, we're it! This past Saturday we did the Foxy's Fall Century ride which starts and ends in Davis. It goes out past Fairfield and up into Napa county by Lake Berryessa and wraps back around to Davis. It was going to be over 20 miles farther than either of us had ever ridden before and we were definitely feeling a bit anxious over it. I think part of the anxiety was because there was a stretch of about 20 miles where we would hit some pretty big hills. Since Ironman Arizona is a mainly flat course, we have avoided hills as much as possible. Why inflict any more pain than is necessary, right? So we knew this ride would be a challenge. It didn't help that the hills didn't come until after mile 50.
So we started our day with those hills looming in our minds. It was the normal early start to the day. We got to Davis and parked in a friend's driveway. It was definitely cold. We were both wearing our One10 tri tops which are sleeveless. Luckily we opted to bring arm warmers which was crucial to not dying of frostbite. We got our stuff together, griped a little (ok maybe a lot), I punched myself in the mouth getting my arm warmers on....it was a pretty normal training morning for us! We checked in, got a map, met up with the rest of our buds for the pre-ride pics, and were on our way just before 8am.

It was pretty cold. We were stopping at a lot of stoplights. Once we got just out of town, we noticed this thick layer of fog and mist and headed straight for it. It definitely made it tough to warm up. Luckily that broke up after a short distance. We were cruising along, trying to figure out how we were feeling, when we spotted a friend of ours on the side messing with his bike. When I glanced back at him, my wheel turned slightly and I could feel immediately that it was flat. No wonder I felt like a snail! So we popped the wheel off, started changing the tire, then the awesome bike support guys showed up. I figured they'd change it faster and I might as well get my entry fee's worth and let them change the tire. I was back in action in no time.


I opted to take a snack and photo break while they changed it :)

At our first rest stop, we met back up with some of the group and grabbed some grub. We didn't stay too long before heading out again. Rest stop 2 was just a short stop since our lunch stop wasn't too far ahead. We started to encounter a few little hills which put us in check for sure. But we were still passing some people so I didn't feel too bad about going a bit slow. At mile 42 I looked down and noticed my tire was definitely going flat again. ugh pull over and get to changing. No bike support this time so it was all me. Pulled out a nice thorn, some rocks, and made sure there was nothing else hiding in the tire. Had a pretty successful experience with my CO2 and we were on our way to the lunch stop. But those last few miles were a chore!

Lunch was a nice regroup again. We stretched, ate, and just enjoyed some time out of the saddle. Once we got going, it didn't take long for the hills to show up. They were tough. The first was a longer grind. I think it went on for a couple miles or so. It was just a short break before Cardiac Hill. It lived up to it's name. There were some people walking and I was determined for that to not be me. We just kept on pedalling and eventually made it up to the top. There were some pretty nice downhills. I tend to take it a little easier on those than my dad does. 30mph is plenty fast for me. We happily pulled into our final rest stop for some fruit and sodas. It was great to know we had less than 30 miles left. The rest of the ride was just trying to get it done. We were tired, grumpy, sore, and hungry. We stopped at the graffiti bridge in Davis for some pics before fighting the wind back into town.

We realized that the route was short by a couple miles so we had to loop the neighborhood (and do some donuts in front of the driveway) to make it an even 100 miles.
We quickly locked the bikes up and transitioned to our run gear and took off for a 30 min run. We were not looking forward to it since we were feeling so rough on the bike. But it was a surprisingly good run. After a few minutes, the kinks all shook out and we were able to keep a pretty good pace.
All in all, the ride taught us a lot. We need to focus more on our nutrition on the bike. We need to spend a lot more time stretching in the next few weeks. We finished the ride in less than 7 hours. Since Arizona is flat, the 112 mile bike should be pretty manageable. The run didn't feel as bad as we thought it would. I think this gave us a lot of confidence (in the end, not in the beginning of the ride) for how Arizona can go. It was also a fun day. As long as we can keep a good attitude and have a good time like we did at Foxy's, we should be in for a great race.


The gang post ride!