# First century - Done!



## leadout_kv (Feb 7, 2011)

I finished my first century this weekend. The Sea Gull Century. It was mid 70's for an awesome day.

I felt great for the first 62 miles where the major rest stop was but made a mistake while at the rest stop. I was cycling with 3 other guys. Our wives met us at the 62 mile mark where they made us sandwiches and had drinks on ice. It was great but I knew with my body if I stopped for longer than 5 to 10 minutes my legs would feel like mush. Well, our stop lasted close to an hour. Yikes. Needless to say the final 39 miles (yes it was 101 miles total) was brutal. The wind was one thing but stopping for that long was a huge mistake. If I do the century next year my rest stops need to be much shorter.


----------



## sherlock (Aug 6, 2011)

Should have stretched it out when you stopped, and stretched again before setting off.


----------



## dcorn (Sep 1, 2011)

My friend and I did the Seagull as well and was the first century for both of us. 

We stopped and every rest stop and the first two and the last one we sat for wayyy too long. We were waiting for our friend who had a slower rider with him, and sat for over an hour at the last rest stop, probably close to 2 hours. Felt terrible getting back on the bike. 

Despite the wind, which was absolutely horrendous for most of the ride (15-20mph sustained, 35+ gusts) I finished with a 17.8 average. I rode my ass off on the last 15 miles to get the average above 18, but no dice. Can't believe how flat it was out there. I'm betting if there was no wind, we could have easily kept a 20+mph pace. Between the first and second stop, we got together with a few other guys and cruised around 26mph when there was no wind. 

Still, I'm happy how I did on the first century ever. Longest ride before this was a metric back in April. I'm not even sore, but the long stops may have helped with that. I thought I'd be dying, but had plenty of gas left at the end for a short sprint to the finish line in a little competition with another rider 

Definitely doing the Snow Hill route next year because I was told the wind wasn't nearly as brutal. I'll either have to whip my friends into better shape or just go it alone to get under 5 hrs ride time. Plus yeah, definitely spending a max 5-10 minutes at stops. Just enough to refill the bottles and have a gel pack.


----------

