Rider Story: My First 100

I often have pondered a bit of advice I once heard: "Preparation makes up for a lack of talent." Preparation made the difference for me in completing my first century ride.

As a child, I did not do very much bicycling. My love of this sport started at age 35, after a very grave discussion with my doctor after my yearly check-up. I was very overweight, had high blood pressure, cholesterol, all the symptoms of being a classic couch/computer chair potato. I remember the sense of accomplishment I had the following spring after completing 3.5 miles by doing 5 laps of a circuit that included climbing an uphill on a highway overpass that had about 25 feet of elevation gain, using a bike from Wal-Mart that had been modified with a longer seat post to accommodate the length of my legs. I was even happier that by the fall I could climb the same hill without downshifting below the middle chain ring.

Five years later I celebrated my 40th birthday by summiting Mt St Helens in Washington state, which is still the highest of the three mountain summits I have hiked to. Shortly after that accomplishment I decided that in celebration of every future birthday I would set a goal or designate a milestone in my life. For my 41st birthday I chose completing a century ride.

Ideally I wanted to do the century in an organized event. My first real practice for this was completing the metric century in last year's Ironman, my first entry in your event. Unfortunately, my first attempt at a full century last August was not well researched. I chose the TCBC's Weekend on Wheels in Winona, MN, which is Deep In the Mississippi Valley. Too many long hills, and my Trek 7.5 DX hybrid just wasn't the best bike for the job. I then decided to put all my focus into the 2009 Ironman.

To me it was a bit of a do-or-die. My 42nd birthday is coming up in mid-June, and if I failed there would be little time left to try again, and almost no chance with my work schedule to ride in an organized event. I felt my heart sink during the last 10 days before the ride, as I watch the weather forecast change from light winds and temperatures of mid 40s to mid 60s to mid 30s and mid 40s with strong winds, rain, and the possibility of strong thunderstorms with hail.

I had to at least try, after all, I had commuted to and from work (9.3 miles round trip) most of the days through the winter, including a particularly brutal -18F with -32F wind chills. But I also knew there was a big difference between surviving 30 minutes or so of brutal cold inside the city limits of Marshall, MN, and 10 or more hours of wind and rain. I upgraded my existing rain gear, and added a rack to the back of my new road bike to carry the extra gear, something I had been avoiding.

The first 25 miles was some of the best riding I have ever had, due in part to the strong tail wind. I knew, of course, that I would later be paying for that joy with pain and sweat. The second 25, up to Le Sueur, was not bad thanks to my new rain gear. I was actually very surprised to see the length of the line to sign up for the shuttle bus (I actually stood a few minutes in that line thinking it was the line to the food). The next 20 miles was one of the most miserable experiences of my life. Not being able to be able to get to much more than half my usual crank cadence in the smallest gear was physically and emotionally draining. About halfway between the rest stops I had made the decision that I could not finish the ride. I would have called for a sag wagon right there, but I knew that they were already overloaded and I figured that as long as I could keep moving forward, I could make it to the Montgomery rest stop.

Once I was there, after getting a bit of rest and after hearing that it would be at the second bus trip before there would be a seat to ride back, I decided that I probably did have 10 more miles of endurance left in me. This would at least be somewhat gratifying, since my longest ride so far had been 75 miles, and with Lonsdale being at about 80 miles I would at least have accomplished a longer ride (when I first saw the route map, I thought it was odd to have the two stops so close together, but I am so grateful you planned it that way). About 9 miles later (mercifully a bit easier pedaling than the previous 20), I checked the time, and began visualizing the rest of the ride in my head. I had realized that there was only a few miles of headwind left since the route turned mainly north after that, and that I had a chance to make it to the finish ahead of the last sag wagon. I made the decision - I had not come to ride on a bus to the finish line, I was there to ride a bicycle to complete a milestone in my life. I stopped at Lonsdale long enough to have a bowl of pasta and fill my Gatorade bottle, and was off again.

I finished at 5:40 pm, ahead of the sweep of the last sag wagon. If I had enough energy left, I would have hooted and hollered in victory. As it was, I was so drained that the excitement of completing the ride did not even hit me until after I woke up from my post-ride nap a few hours later.

Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to have such a memorable experience. Once again I have been reminded of how many seemingly impossible things in life can be accomplished by having the will to continue the struggle, even when it seems that success is out of reach. The range of my emotions during the day - the joy of speeding along at the first, the acceptance of the rain, the despair of believing that I would fail, the determination to make it to just one last rest stop, the exhausted numbness that tempered the completion of my goal, and the excitement and fulfillment that I still feel almost a week later at not only accomplishing my goal, but doing so over such obstacles. Knowing that I did so when so many other riders gave up makes the accomplishment so much sweeter. I cannot imagine a ride that will be more memorable than the Century of Ironman 2009.

See you next year!

Scott