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Countdown to 30: Century: Monument St and Dover/Sherborn Loops

Posted by @teeheehee on May 25th, 2009

At last. At long last. The training, the preparation, the nervous anticipation; it was all for something.

On May 16th I set out at 9:30AM to ride 100 miles. Six weeks prior to that day I began my training in earnest, building on a physical foundation that the last two+ years of riding my bike around Boston had sculpted.

I followed a plan I found which recommended performing long rides on weekends, increasing the distance each week until two weeks out. Since I did plenty of riding around during the mild winter we had this year I was able to start part of the way into the program.

First was a (roughly) 30-miler. The following weekend I went on a ride of opportunity: in the middle of the night I did a modified 50-mile route the Marathon was set to take several hours later. The next weekend I punched in 57 miles going around the Nagog Pond in Acton. Next up was a Metric Century achieving 68 mile ride that I stitched together from two smaller routes. Having done more than 65% of the total distance I planned the next ride to be a shorter 50 miles to Walden Pond and the DeCordova Sculpture Park, which is a much recommended way to ready oneself for…

a Century Ride:



View 100 Mile Ride, Monument St and Dover/Sherborn in a larger map

Difficulties of the Day

All of the routes I took in my training started and finished at my apartment. There is a comfort to riding around the places I know best, and I wanted to feel that way when completing each ride. Perhaps it is a small psychological trick which helped motivate me to keep on with my plan; edging out every little bit of negativity which may have made me stagnate and miss my goal.

Pretty much the whole day it threatened to rain, and at times I felt raindrops that cautioned more may fall, but nothing really developed from it all. Instead it was calm, warm, and fairly grey all day long. Having suffered from a sunburn two weeks before I made sure to apply sunscreen twice, once in the morning and once about halfway through the ride. Also, my GPS failed me. It has taken me a while to deal with this and get off my duff to manually map the routes and geotag my images, and so this write-up is now a week past due.

The ride embarked from my apartment and followed the Minuteman Bikeway to Bedford, where the first real route of the ride began:

The Monument Street Loop

Actually, this route was mostly a jaunt into Concord and back and was only supposed to add ~ 12 miles. When I reached Concord I had already managed to miss a turn, and so a couple more miles got added on. As I rolled into the center of town I hit the quarter-way mark of my ride, and so I took the opportunity to eat one of the two peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches I had packed for the trip.

On the way back to Bedford I took a dirt trail, something that was an option on this PocketRide I had selected. It was the same dirt trail I encountered on a previous PocketRide and the first time I took it I liked it so much I had hoped to find a way to incorporate it in my century attempt, and so I did. (Advice: make your first Century what you want it to be, it makes it all the more worth it.)

I continued and made it back to Bedford, hit the Minuteman again and rode to Arlington center. There I applied my second coat of sunscreen and then began the second major route of the ride:

The Dover/Sherborn Loop

Now, the PocketRide Dover/Sherborn Loop has two options: 57 or 70 miles. Originally I had planned on doing 70 and therefore needed only a minor route to add on (Monument Street Loop.) I was surprised when I arrived at Arlington center to see that I had over 40 miles done, and I realized that the 57 miles seemed the more sensible option.

Very early on during this portion of the ride I came to dislike Belmont, again. The first time disliking the town was when I went on the never-ending hill known as Prospect Street, which seemed to drag on for at least 10 full minutes and amounted to being the most grueling, exhausting climb I had ever done. On this trip I was introduced to Concord Ave, which climbed nearly the same height as Prospect did but in what probably should have been 90 seconds of awful, agonizingly steep torture. I admit, 45 miles into my day I was not up for such a difficult climb and had to stop to rest – twice, before cresting it. Afterwards I felt drained, and I seriously questioned my abilities the rest of the day because of that intense, but brief, challenge.

Overall this loop was most impressive because of all of the extravagant homes that I passed by. There were a couple of big-name colleges I passed by as well, but seriously these homes were large and bespoke wealth that I just wouldn’t know how to handle (but entertain myself by pretending I could.) Definitely some money out in those parts.

There were two more points where I screwed my directions up a bit on this second half of the ride. The first was simple, and short, and added on maybe a mile or so while correcting and had included a bench to sit on during my corrective detour. The second deviation happened in the last 15 miles and required me to use my backup map to bail me out.

All was made perfect, though.

When I was done with Dover/Sherborn I had but to complete my journey. I made my way back to the Minuteman and from there to Alewife to finish the day by doing some more city riding. In full glory I turned on to Coolidge Road and broke 100 miles (and tacked on .08 more as I rolled up to my apartment.)

Pre-30th Birthday Century Ride: complete. 100.08 miles.

It was amazing. I guess now I have to figure out what to do before I turn 31.



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