I Did It !!!

[jobob]

Woo-hoo, I rode my first century yesterday, and lived to tell the tale !

We just got home - report to follow.

- jo "yeah I'm psyched" bob

[Veronica]

Yeah Jo! I knew you could do it! Details please!

V.

[spazzdog]

Yippee-Ki-YAy!

Way to go Jobob.

spazz

[snapdragen]

Congrats kiddo!

[CorsairMac]

Way to go Jo!!.......job well done!! give us details!

[aka_kim]

Awesome, Jo. Congratulations! I'd been thinking about you... I thought you'd mentioned Sierra Buttes in an earlier post this year.

[lkrider]

So cool for you! And great inspiration for me. (My goal for this year also. It seems like whenever a century is offered, they add a couple of big climbs just to make it interesting, and that has scared me off more than the distance. I am training now and adding hills wherever I go.) Please tell us all about it, after you get all relaxed and smooth those muscles out again.

[jobob]

Lee and I went up to the Marysville / Yuba City area this weekend to ride the Bike Around the Buttes with our friends Angie and Jonathan (Angie rode with me on the Cinderella so some of you have already met her).

I’ve never ridden more than 72 miles (and that was last year) and I’d been doing essentially no training for this – I’ve done a few 40-50 mile rides this year, and I did OK on the Cinderella 2 weeks ago, but the day after Cinderella I went off to Europe for work all that following week, returned home that Friday night, did a 45 mile ride last Sunday, a 10 mile ride on Monday, and that was it until the day of the century. So my preparation for my very first century has been pretty, uh, pathetic.

So I was a bit worried about how fast I would be able to go, or if I would run out of steam partway through. Lee and I agreed we would ride our own pace and not worry about how long we took, so we arrived at the start and headed out well before Angie and Jon, who are much faster riders that we are (and like to sleep in ).

The thing I was worried about was the distance and the total time in the saddle - as in, can I survive 7 to 8 hours of more-or-less continuous riding? Well, that’s what I was there to find out. Climbing was not an issue here - there were no hills to speak of on this ride. Well, there’s one, sort of – I’ll get to that in a bit. But there be headwinds. I hate headwinds. I assumed there would be headwinds and I was not disappointed. We had headwinds at freakin’ 8 o’clock in the morning. Luckily they never became as strong as they could have been, and for that I am grateful.

The course is a large figure 8 which intersects at the start/finish point. The first lobe is 60 miles in length, and goes through flat-as-flat-can be farmlands. It got a bit boring after a bit, but then we rode levee roads alongside the Sacramento River for some change of scenery.

I told Lee I wanted to keep around a 15 mph pace, I figured I could maintain that pretty well for long periods of time. We had started out a bit after 7:30 in the morning and with the 3 reststops along the first lobe of the course (one of which was a lunch stop), I was hoping we’d reach the 60 mile point around noontime. Amazingly enough, we reached it at 11:55, we had an average speed of over 15 mph, and I was feeling fine. I had figured if I wasn’t doing well that would be an easy bail-out point, but Lee and I were both rarin’ to go for the remaining 40 miles, which took us around the Sutter Buttes and some scenic rolling terrain.

At around the 70 mile point we encountered the only thing resembling a hill on the ride – according to the ride website it’s only a 3% grade, so there you have it. As we were approaching said hill a couple of heavyset middleaged guys decked out in racing ensembles riding the latest carbon-fiber ubermachines came roaring past us. OK, no biggie, that happens to us all the time. But it was just so funny to see how abruptly they slowed down once the grade kicked up slightly past horizontal. I admit, I’m shallow, I simply couldn’t resist ... plus it was the only darn hill for 100 miles so I figured I’d make the most of it. I quietly geared down as I started up the hill and scooted past them in absolutely no time. I made it a point to breathe smoothly and soundlessly and make it look like even less of an effort that it actually was. I just got such an evil delight in me on my old-school steel framed bike with the rear rack & the canvas saddlebag (which at that moment was carrying the wollywarm jersey & armwarmers I had started out wearing which I ditched for a sleeveless jersey, & the lycra sport pants I peeled off as it started warming up, a package of PopTarts and Jo’s Pharmacopia (aka various OTC drugs and other odds & ends)), and smoking those guys who just moments before where whizzing past us in their ultralight speed machines and were at that moment whining and wheezing and barely making it up that sad excuse for a hill. Bwah hah hah. I was feelin’ goooood and a bit full of myself.

You would think by now I would know the bikegods do not allow such hubris go unpunished.

As I started down the other side of the hill, a nice long gentle descent, I coasted for a bit to give Lee a chance to catch up (er, I smoked him going up that hill too ). As he approached I shifted onto the large chainring and started pedalling so I could pick up some speed for the rest of the descent.

Just then, with absolutely no warning, I felt a very sharp pain on the front of my left knee, just above the kneecap. I was thinking “whaaa…?”. I have to admit I’ve been very very lucky so far with regards to bike-related injuries and general discomfort. I’ve managed to own bikes I could easily adjust to fit me correctly, I’ve found a saddle that suits me, I’ve never had any sort of nagging shoulder, arm, neck, back, or leg problems in the year and a half I’ve been road riding. That said, I’ve never tried to ride 100 miles, so maybe it’s payback time.

So I tried not to panic and I kept peddaling, and I was relived to find the pain subsided after a couple of miles. But it never really went away completely. But then after about 8 miles it started coming back again. We were approaching the 80 mile rest stop, and I needed to refill my water bottles and have a snack, so I figured I’d raid the saddlebag Pharmacopia for a couple of ibuprofen while I was at it. Come to find out the rest stop had run out of food (they had rice cakes, which do not qualify ) so I went back into the saddlebag for the emergency stash of PopTarts - see, it’s worth carrying the cyclists equivalent of the Kitchen Sink sometimes

When we started out again my knee felt really bad, I was afraid if I wasn’t actively peddaling it would worsen and that’s exactly what happened. For the next few miles I was hoping the pain would subside or at least not worsen, and between miles 80 and 85 I was seriously considering calling it a day and being sagged back – I was only going around 8-10 mph at that point and trying to keep a smooth easy spin going. It was still a personal best for me, distance wise, but I was bumming at the prospect of having to bail so close to the end.

Luckily (?) at that point we turned a corner and went face into a fairly strong headwind. I say luckily because I was able to draft behind Lee for nearly 10 miles, and that allowed me to spin and keep my knee moving without putting any major pressure on it, and the pain subsided for the most part. The last 5 miles of the ride were kind of grim – we were on some fairly rough roads, we were both tired and achey and saddle-weary, Lee really wanted to stop to just get off and stretch for a moment but he knew I didn’t dare stop for fear that my knee would start to ache again, so he kept going (it didn’t occur to him that could have stopped and stretched and easily catch back up to me again, oy). Between the two of us we were doing a lot of whining those last few miles. Ah, but when we turned the last corner and I could see the finish about ½ mile away, it was sweet.

Come to find out, even with slowing down considerably after mile 80, we still managed an average speed of about 14.5 mph and a ride time of a bit under 7 hours, so I’m really thrilled with how well it turned out. Angie & Jon never did catch up with us, they were faster but they spent a lot more time at the rest stops, since this was their turf and they knew a lot of people participating & working the ride, while we spent very little time at the stops.

And what’s with the knee? Darned if I know. It was a bit stiff this morning when we set out for a ride around Angie and Jon’s home, over some hilly and sometimes bumpy terrain. After about 20 miles I started experiencing the sharp pain again, when we were still about 5 miles from their home so this time I waited along the side of the road with Angie while Lee & Jon rode the rest of the way and came back with the truck to get us – I just wasn’t up to gutting through it again. And it’s pretty stiff tonight – but I only get the sharp pain when I’m riding, and not all the time when I'm riding.

I wish I knew what caused it and how to prevent it from happening again. I suppose it could have resulted from my lack of preparation – I hadn’t been riding very much the last couple of weeks, and before that I hadn’t done any sort of progressive training to lead up to a ride of this distance, and although my endurance was OK maybe my muscle tone wasn’t. My saddle might have been adjusted a bit on the low side, I’ve read that can cause pain in the front of the knee, while too high can cause pain in the back of the knee. I raised my saddle a bit this morning before our ride but I couldn’t tell if that helped, maybe I have to wait for my knee to heal up first. Anyhow, I’ll play it by ear.

- jo "creaky" bob

[shewhobikes]

Congratulations!!! Yikes, sorry about the knee. I haven't a clue. Maybe you ought to check in with a doc just in case. You need those knees to keep working for you!

[Barb]

CONGRATS!!!

I'm looking at the second week in June for my first century. I'm pretty excited...and nervous. I also have not found anyone to ride with. It's soooo much easier for me to go long distance with someone. Wish me luck.

[CorsairMac]

Thanks for the details jo - what a neat story. waaahaaa about the knee but you finished the ride. You can be She-Ra Princess of Power for the day!! (hands Jo the She-Ra tiara). I loved the story about taking the uberbikers over on the hills. I'm was thinking you were gonna turn to them and say something like: "com'n guys...you can make it....just a little further!" and give Lee a hug and a kiss - he made it too...what a guy!!

[SadieKate]

Way to go! Rah-rah-rah, Sis-boom-bah!

As we were approaching said hill a couple of heavyset middleaged guys decked out in racing ensembles riding the latest carbon-fiber ubermachines came roaring past us. . . . But it was just so funny to see how abruptly they slowed down once the grade kicked up slightly past horizontal. I admit, I’m shallow, I simply couldn’t resist

I'd have done the same thing [insert Evil Grin of Shallow Sisterhood here]

[slinkedog]

Great job, Jo! You're an inspiration to me! So sorry about the knee pain. I hope it was just a one-time anomaly.

So, what's your next century???

[sarah b.]

Woo Hoo! Thanks for sharing your story! Way to persevere!
-sarah b.

[nuthatch]

You are my inspiration, JoBob! I'm hoping to work up to a century soon!

I think you're right. Your "hubris" on that hill could have made your knee act up - pushing hard can do it when those little knee muscles aren't quite ready. Knees are one of God's mysteries, aren't they? Nothing else on earth moves with two bones stacked one on top of the other, held together by a series of rubber bands!