Right on, ride on

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:
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This weekend’s ride started on Saturday morning. I began it a bit later in the morning while I waited for some rain to pass and, as designed, the ride was shorter than last week’s. After the rain moved on it became a very nice day, and perhaps a bit too nice as I opted not to put on any sunscreen and now have somewhat reddened shoulders and arms to remind me to apply it in the future.

I chose a Minuteman Bikeway extension ride that went from the Bedford end and hit Walden Pond and the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park. I haven’t been to either location and have been wanting to visit each for the last few years. Added bonus: Hanscom Airforce Base – the first airport I’ve ridden to.
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When I began my training for my upcoming century ride I recognized in the back of my mind the need for a contingency plan.

I had no idea how feasible it would be for me to build up to and actually ride 100 miles before June. I now think I am in a very good position to do that in the next couple of weeks, but I still feel it necessary to have a “fallback” ready.

For example: what if my bike breaks down? What if I hurt myself training and can’t do the ride? Maybe the weather will turn for the worst and blizzards will strike every weekend until June. (Hey, it’s New England, it doesn’t hurt to consider every weather possibility.) If something happens and I can’t do the full 100, how will I cheat/accomplish my goal and not bruise my precious ego too much?

Here is where I rationalize things and conclude that a one-off solution can be, under the right circumstances, considered a successful completion of task. If it comes down to it a metric century, which is to say 100 kilometers or roughly 62 miles, would “count” as achieving my goal if I found 100 miles to be out of reach.

Well, today I feel very good (and a bit weary.) Yesterday (Sunday) I achieved a major milestone in my training which accomplished my contingency plan by completing a metric century. Actually I managed to do a bit more and clocked in 68.35 miles for the day. Woo hoo!
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This week I was not at a loss for weekend ride options.

On the one hand I had a list of Pocket Rides that include some loops at either end of the Minuteman Bikeway. These rides have the advantage of both partial familiarity (Bikeway) and complete newness, plus there are comments about what to expect in hills and attractions.

On the other hand I could join one of the Bikes not Bombs group rides that are meant for training for their 62-miler coming up in June’s Bike-a-thon. I participated in last year’s 25-mile ride, which I rode 35 miles of and still didn’t finish. (I got waylaid in the last mile, twice, and ended up needing to be picked up. To my defense, it was 95+ degrees F that day.) I am still trying to find other interested people to join my team, “BikeMe”, so I have yet to sign up for this year’s ride. I’m also thinking of going for the 62-miler, so these training rides would really help me prepare for that.

It was at about 10AM this morning that I made my mind up, I was going to go with a Pocket Ride suggestion: Nagog Pond Loop. This starts at the Bedford end of the Minuteman and goes for about 30 miles though Carlisle, Acton, and Concord. Nagog Pond itself is in Acton.
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Training for the Century Ride means doing long rides in a progressively increasing manner up until the max event. I need to do a long ride every weekend which can be troublesome during the New England spring. In short, the weather won’t always be pretty, but I intend to be out there doing my thing anyways.

This past week I got more serious about my cycling passion with the purchase of some solid rain gear. Up until now I’ve worn nothing outright protective for rainy conditions, I’ve just trusted that I packed an extra outfit to change into when I get to a sheltered place, which was usually within 30 minutes.

This method breaks down on long rides. For qualification I generally consider any ride that is more than an hour long to be a “long ride”. Long rides may subject you to unpleasant conditions which were never an issue for me last summer; it used to be any ride would have been rescheduled to guarantee fair weather.

So I made some purchases during the week and now have cyclist-oriented rain pants and coat, fingered gloves with an optional second layer that adds more protection, and somewhat unrelated some Pocket Rides maps which I was planning on using to plot my long rides.

In some respects I feel a bit under prepared for the Century still. I am still forming logistics for all the rides leading up to, and including, the Century. I already have a couple of the Pocket Rides packs which have won me over for the simplicity, completeness, and presentation they offer. The new ones add rides that start and stop at either end of the Minuteman Bikeway. I thought to myself: “great – I can combine last week’s Minuteman 30-miler with one of these to make a longer ride, slowly building my base distance while keeping some things familiar which can make the time go by a little easier.”

Or, maybe not….
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This June I will be turning 30, one of those benchmark years that suddenly makes me no longer a 20-something by simple definition.

Since turning 29 I have been trying to think of things to do that would somehow cap my 20’s much like graduating high school and moving to Boston did for my teen years. Graduating college counts towards that, but I wanted something more recent to feel that I am continuing to grow and define myself.

I lagged through about half of my 29-hood without coming up with something. I said to myself: “Self, I need to have a personal achievement that I can attain before my age becomes evenly divisible by the first five values of the Fibonacci sequence.”

And so at the start of winter I decided it was high time I rode a Century – my first personally propelled 100-miles in a single day.

This, I knew, would be a challenge for me and I’d need to improve certain personal aspects in order to achieve it.
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