It's been two days since I completed the Cap2Cap Century and I'm still amazed that I finished.
This was my third consecutive year riding this relatively flat 100 mile route and I felt fairly well prepared to put in a good day "in the saddle". It's not a race mind you, but I do enjoy competing against myself and trying to improve my best time. While I don't have as many miles in at this point as I did last year (weather, work, etc), I'm certainly not in bad shape by any means. Miles wise January and February were meager. In March I squeezed in 300 miles. April was very good and I pounded out 500. I do the bulk of this on weekends and an occasional office week. Plus, I've spent much of the last year focusing on overall conditioning and I'm feeling like I'm in the best shape of my life overall.
That being said, when I woke up Saturday morning I felt like I could at least equal last year's time of 5 hours and 15 minutes. At 7:30 am a couple hundred of us rolled out on the road to Colonial Williamsburg. Much of the route is absolutely beautiful and the scenery is amazing. We cut through small towns and pass Colonial era plantations on heavily shaded roads. Sometimes the smell of the honeysuckle and gardenia is overpowering!
I jumped into a really decent pace line of about 20 riders and after warming up we were steaming along at an average speed of about 25 mph! I took a couple of good pulls at the front and we rolled into the first rest area. I refilled my bottles and ate a banana and a Clif bar. About 10 minutes later we were off again and clipping along at a good pace. As we were going past some open fields I noticed that we were being helped by a very stiff tailwind and our average speed was now around 32 or 33 mph. While this was deliriously fun heading toward the turn around point, I knew if the wind didn't change directions it would be a suck fest of mammoth proportions on the way back.
At the 50 mile turnaround I ate, drank, and relaxed in the shade for a little bit. It was starting to get hot and the wind was really picking up. I don't like sitting for too long because you start to stiffin' up, so I decided to get moving. I was talking with one of the ride volunteers when someone started yapping over his radio that they need an ambulance somewhere. A rider had been blown into another rider and they both went down pretty hard! Yikes! I took off with a couple of other guys and as we were heading over the James River bridge the wind felt UNREAL! I thought it was because we were on a bridge (duh!) but that was not the case. The bridge is not long, nor steep but it seemed to take forever to cross. We were going about 12 mph!
Once we crossed the river and got into the tree line it was a little better, but not much. We wanted to form an echelon, a great way to get in someones draft in a crosswind. But that doesn't work to well on a fairly well traveled road. The choice was echelon and risk getting thumped by a car or suffer in the wind. We chose the wind. The next 50 miles was by far the worst physical suffering I've ever felt in my life! We tried to stay together but eventually we were separated. You want to help a guy, but you can only do so much. You just go at whatever pace you think you can maintain. I did everything I could think of to distract myself from the pain. I said my Rosary. I asked every Saint I could think of to pray for me. I said an unknown number of Hail Mary's. I recited every prayer I could think of several times over.
The last 25 or 30 miles were a nightmare of freakish pain! I Filled my bottles at the last rest stop and ate again. I was only there about five minutes and took off again with Robert. Robert and I had ridden about 50 miles together off and on during the ride. He unintentionally dropped me on the first "hill" and he was a constant dot on the horizon for the next 15 miles or so. I finally caught him, and unintentionally dropped him about 2 miles later. I actually wanted to quit with 12 miles to go, then I saw a pair of crap filled white jockey shorts laying on the side of the road! How FREAKING BIZARRE! I've seen a lot of debris on the side of the road in my time but I can honestly say that was a first! I thought "if you quit with twelve miles to go after all you've been through today that will sum it all up"! So I put my head down and kept going. With three miles to go I had another first, my quads started cramping like mad! I had to put pressure on certain points to keep them from totally imploding.
When I finally crossed the line I was emotionally spent. I felt nothing whatsoever. No joy. No sense of accomplishment. Nothing. I just sat on a chair and tried not to fall over. I started feeling light headed and having sharp stomach cramps and decided to use a Port o' John. After a few minutes in there the cramps started to get so bad that I decided it was time to vamoose! I didn't want to pass out and die in a portable crapper. That's not a noble way to go and would not sit well with the wife and kids. So I staggered over to some grass and layed down for about 20 minutes.
Finally I felt good enough to partake of the lunch they provided. I had some "Buzz and Ned's" barbecue and tried to drink as much as I could. Carol came and picked me up. She'd been at the soccer fields all day with the girls and was worried about me when she saw how windy it was. Sunday I was not feeling too hot at all, but I'm doing much better today. I still feel extremely weak, but the stomach cramps are almost gone.
I'll be working in Albany this week. Usually I'd already be thinking about the upcoming weekends rides. At the moment it's the last thing I want to think about.
End Result- 103 miles in 6 hours, 5 minutes.
