We headed out from Laurie's house and within 3 miles Darren got a flat - since I knew the route pretty well I held back with him and Deanna. He fixed it really quickly and we were back at it. I guess Greg and Jodie rode past the first turn off and Laurie was questioning how to deal with a the group splitting.
We all grouped back up together at the turn up the plateau for the long climb on Thomson Road. Once up the long climb we turned toward Beaver lake poor Darren his aero bottle broke loose and all his fluid poured out.. He was just getting everything out of the way early.. So we stopped a mile or so down the road at Beaver lake Park to refill water bottles..
We headed down one of my favorite climbs - stair step hill. I'm happy to say I have gotten a lot better at downhills and was able to stay in the middle of the group. Greg and Jodie led and missed the turn so they got a little bit extra milage again (this happened a few more times esp to Greg). We took back roads up past Snoqulamie falls and up to the truck stop in North Bend with some good climbs and a lot of false flats.
At some point the sponge in my aero bottle slipped down and no longer helped block the gatarade from splattering all over the place - I found this out after refilling the bottle and quickly taking a gatorade shower until I stopped and fixed it.. I had no plain water with me so I wound up licking my hands as much as I could to help get rid of the sticky feeling. Now I had a good sugar coating to go with all the salt I was sweating so as we passed the Snoqualmie river a few times I was very very temped to jump in and rinse off.
As we headed back down into the valley we had to take a short detour through Carnation for a 4th of July parade. We got to see horses and it smelled of festival food.. mmm pure torture while I ate "yummy" gel...
We rolled through Carnation valley and a short out and back to the the climb back towards Redmond via Union hill. I actually loved this part. I had not dropped everything on the erst of the climbs just so that i could redeem myself from last weekend where I hit the wall on these hills. So this week I was so happy my legs worked with me and climbed really well. I pulled a bit away from the group until the downhills where they caught back up as usual. Just reminded me how much I like climbing :)
Next up was a final 20 miles around Lake Sammamish just to finish off the century with nothing to hard. I was just sop happy to be able to rinse off my hands a bit at Marymoore park. Deanna and Darren separated and finished off there ride on the trail.
Around mile 90 the stickiness of my bike and everything finally broke me of any desire to drink gatorade which quickly led to me hitting wall.. I did not want to eat or drink anything other than plain water. So the last 10 miles I dropped back from Laurie, Greg and Jodie and just chilled the rest of the way around the lake to Laurie's house.
Laurie and Jodie head out on a :30 run off the bike while Greg and I jumped in the lake to cool/rinse off with recovery chocolate milk in hand.
Laurie was nice enough to send out the elevations graph from the route :)
I am very happy with how I did on my first century ride since doing IMC in 2007 and even better I rode a lot strong and lasted a lot longer than last weekend :) Other than getting tired of sticky food at the end my nutrition did well for me. I have found that I need to eat something "solid" about half way so I tried a mini powerbar and then a mini cliff bar an hour later which were both good because they are small enough to eat in a bite or two and helped keep my stomach settled. But by far the best part was riding with such a fun group of people. Laurie, Greg and Jodie made a great little pack and were really nice to let me tag along :)
2 comments:
i am really bummed that i wasn't into triathlon back when we lived in issaquah. we lived downtown and had easy access to the back-roads of tiger, were less than a mile from samammish and a mere mile from the trailheads that lead up onto tiger. that place was a DREAM location for tri training.
you made me very homesick with your ride description, thankyouverymuch. ;)
Congrats on a good ride. What a great day!
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