Rob Ballou

First century

So far, my plan for race weekends has been to rest on Friday (or maybe a recovery ride), get to sleep early, go for a easy ride on Saturday, making sure my diet is nothing that will mess with my system. Last weekend was suppose to be a race at Castlewood State Park, but the forecast was looking against us and the race was rescheduled. But when I woke up Saturday, there was not a rain cloud in sight, so I set out on the road bike. I may have gone overboard.

I completed my first century, or 100-mile, ride. This was a solo unsupported effort. I have previously attempted various solo centuries, but usually have had a number of things work against me: weather, effort, nutrition. I believe the longest ride previously was 75 or 80 miles.

My goal as I set out on Saturday was simply to spend four to five hours on the bike, hoping to help my back and legs get used to this amount of saddle time for some of the endurance rides later this summer. I brought my camelback for carrying plain water and my rain coat and had about a three-to-four hour bottle of Perpetum and a couple hours of gel in another bottle. I purposely tried to keep my heart rate in a more endurance oriented zone. In the past, I have worn myself down my hitting some sections with too much effort and I didn't want to repeat that (so just like running, keep the pace maintainable!)

I headed west first taking Ladue from downtown Clayton all the way to Olive. This gave me a pretty big dose of rollers that I was happy to be hitting first on this long ride. From there I rode to Baxter and all the way down to the hill at Marshall Rd. This was my first time heading up this hill (which averages a grade of about 3% or 4%, but spikes in a few places to 7% or 8%) and it took quite a bit of effort to stay seated and pedaling at a good cadence. From there I took Big Bend around to my neighborhood and the rode downtown to the Riverfront trail for some flat easy spinning. By the time I got to IL I had covered 58 miles. From there I strolled back to Forest Park, which put me up to 75 miles.

Normally, at 75 miles I'm cooked, but Saturday I felt good. This is when I decided to try to finish the century. To make it "easy" I looped around Forest Park a few times, adding miles (my creative route finding juices were running low!) and trying to avoid most major hills. Suddenly, at mile 90, with my food sources tapped, I was bonking. Luckily I was still in Forest Park and I bought a super-awesome bag of chips and soda from the visitor center. Charged up enough, I decided to head home realizing the whole way that I wasn't going to hit 100 unless I began adding miles. So I began taking detours, but even still I arrived at home with 98 miles done. I needed two more miles.

My running routes that range from two to four miles all go along major roads that I didn't want to battle (I was riding in the 16 mph range at this point), so I decided quickly on a route that I would hope to add up. As I turned onto Big Bend for the final leg home, I passed 100 and finished with 101 miles on the computer. The final 25 miles took me a long time (riding and resting) but I'm happy to finally have that in the books.

• 101 miles
• 6:32:50 ride time
• 15.4 mph average speed

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