1st 100 Miler

It's been said that the Century is the 'thon of the cycling world. I say the Century is the ultra and the metric-century is the 50k of the cycling world.

I over analyze things when given too much time to prepare! So when the night before I pondered doing the century as part of the San Antonio Wheelmen club ride all I had time to do was plan and skipped the stressed out stage of the event. I got on to a service provided by google called GMAPS-Pedometer http://www.gmaps-pedometer.com where one can trace a route specifically to find out the exact mileage one way or roundtrip. (Just watch out for those curves).

It was 30 miles to the starting point in Boerne and I am determined to save gas-money therefore riding to the start is a necessity if I still want to get my long club ride in the bank. A lot of the http://www.sawheelmen.com rides start way the heck out in the boonies.

Nevertheless in the spirit of http://www.hellweek.com up in Fredericksburg where some of my friends from around the nation come to visit my neck of the woods for some hellacious hill-training I was thinking I could go up to Luckenbach and maybe catch a glimpse of the type of road warriors that head to Hell Week every-year as they zoomed past my sorry butt going around 30 miles an hour.

Well, GMAPS-Pedometer showed that I would finish with upwards of 100 miles if I went all the way to Sisterdale let alone Luckenbach. But I was undeterred, remember I hadn't had time to stress out about it and over analyze the crap out of it.

The morning started out fine a little behind the clock to make the 9:00 AM start, but no problem I'll make it up on the road. Ehhn! Thanks for playing! I get about 5 miles from the house when I go to adjust my goggles and boom boom boom, I fumble my rearview mirror that attaches to my glasses. To tell you the truth I feel very exposed when I can't periodically check what is behind me. South Texas drivers are not the friendliest lot to the spandex clad cyclist. But still after searching for about fifteen minutes and coming up empty I thought this would be a great opportunity to practice the looking under your armpit thing that I saw riders in the http://www.letour.com doing on the Champs Elyses (sp?). Honestly, it is possible to look out under your armpit and see whats coming up. Now can I do it fast enough to not end up splayed on the pavement?

So, I get to Boerne late and refuel, but I still manage to catch the slow group up in Comfort. I took the turn off to Little Joshua Creek that adds four miles to the route so I ended up with 51 by the time I got to Comfort (where the ranch can be found - miles and miles of mountain bike trails where I hear if you want to put some work in to it you get to use the ranch free) so I decided that's good enough. So, I refuel and head back again meeting up with some of the slow folk on the way back to Boerne.

Make a long story short, another refuel in Boerne and I'm out there when the sun is really hot so I get cooked to say the least. I made 100 in 6:51 averaging 14.5. I took it easy 'cuz I was going long and it paid off. I was not "Ded" as Ifiok would have told me, but I had a warm glow going.

Next couple of days I did a fifty something up to New Braunfels and it feels like 25. Woohoo! There are hidden benefits to logging a 100 miler.