My FIFTH Century is now done - THREE in the month of July
29 July, 2006
alarm went off at 4am "Slow Ride... Take it easy...." it was going to be one of those kind of days. On the road by 5:30am and it's already a steamy 73F and extremely HUMID. By the time I get to Cool Creek Park for the ride it was foggy. I could deal with the fog for the day if it weren't going to get so hot. Doing pretty good by the time I got to breakfast in Westfield, 43 miles @ 12.5 mph average. I'm having my fastest day yet. By the time I reach Cicero, the sun is out and it's getting blistering already. 53 miles, 77F with a heat index of 87F it's not even noon yet. UGH, it's going to be a LONG, HOT DAY!! Keep plugging along and by the time I get to Noblesville, the temps have risen to 81F with a heat index of 93F I nearly have my metric by now and it's a long way back to the park yet.
I'm starting to get to be toast by now so I go off route a bit into Noblesville and find a Long John Silver's restaurant. I soak my bandana in cold water and get some ice water. I drink part of it and then put the rest in my helmet to melt. I head back onto the route towards the park again. I finally get back to the park and head to Burger King and repeat the water and ice treatment, putting ice in my jersey as well now. IT'S BRUTAL OUT HERE. Head back to the MONON and there's a treat awaiting me near one apartment/condominium complex adjacent to the trail - there's a sprinkler going that splashes the MONON at an intersection. Like a big kid, I climb off the bike and stand in the rotating streams of water.. This feels SO GOOD!! The temps are in the mid 90's now and the heat index has crossed the century mark. I let the water soak the front of my jersey and run down my arms and legs. A young boy sees me and unabashedly I say sometimes even Big people like to play in the water. I leave the MONON and head to The Bike Line in Carmel to say hello and cool off in some air conditioning for a few minutes. I visit with some riders I know who are there then head back to the trail and towards town again. I stop several times more on the way back to town and just miss seeing Jimmy at The Bike Line downtown. I'm toast, but I'm so close to getting this blasted century, I'm going to catch the bus for home then finish in the neighborhood. The last 6 miles are the hardest, I want nothing more than to go back in the house and try to cool off. Finally I get the miles in and head back to home.
I hopped in the shower to get cooled off and wash the day of hard, hot ride away. I had stopped for a short time in chat after getting out of the shower and ate a little dinner, but was falling asleep in my chair so I went to bed early. I went to sleep content to have proved to myself I could get that hot century that had eluded me twice this past month DONE!
Since I ride solo, other than catching up with the group for breakfast and just luckily before they left Cicero I have no one who can ever prove I've done the miles I say I've done but me. But some day, I hope to be good enough to ride along with others so I can actually prove what I'm capable to someone other than myself.
I've been riding for officially just over a year now and this past Thursday The Little Navigator That Could turned ONE YEAR OLD. I plan to eventually write a reflective journal looking back through that first year. I'm proud of what I've done, but can't help but be disappointed that I didn't end the first year as nicely as I'd have like to. I would have liked to have seen the Bike Journal ReUnion century to Lake Geneva as finished instead of a DNF. If I'd worked a little harder, I could have had FIVE centuries for the month of July, I came very close to having had four as it were.
