My First Century

Last January, around the time I turned 51, I learned about a “fun” century ride called the Amtrak Century that goes from Irvine (where I live) down to San Diego. I was told what makes the ride fun is after you complete the 100 mile ride you return on the train in a private car and there’s a huge party on the train. That sounded like fun to me!

What makes someone my age who has only ridden a “comfort” type bike for a year and a half want to attempt a century? That’s a question I’ve asked myself quite often! After years of staying home and caring for children and watching THEM accomplish things, I think I was at a time in my life where I needed to take on a challenge such as this so I could feel I had accomplished something myself.

Not being one that likes to do things alone, I asked everyone I knew if they’d like to tackle the century with me. Most people just looked at me like I was nuts, but I was able to convince two people, my hubby John and my friend Kathy, to take on the challenge.

Although I loved my Sedona I knew if I was going to ride 100 miles I would need a road bike. After much research I brought home a beautiful baby blue OCR Composite in late June. I didn’t have much time to train for the century, which was on September 9th, but first I needed time to get used to both my new bike and the clipless pedals. After about two weeks I felt confident enough to start training.

I did have one more challenge I forgot to mention, this is a VERY popular century. With only 1050 riders allowed and only 650 slots on the return train registration, fills up within hours of opening. Let’s just say I was very determined to do this century, so I was up at dawn and on my computer waiting for registration to open that day. I was very relieved when I found out we got in!

I started reading everything I could about how to train for a century. I was told the Amtrak Century is a good century for first timers because it is relatively flat, but there is a nice sized hill called Torrey Pines that you need to tackle when you’re about 80 miles into the ride. My beginning rides were around 20 miles each and I started to increase my rides as well as add some longer rides once or twice each week. I also started adding some hills to my rides weekly to increase my endurance and to get ready for Torrey Pines.

One thing that continued to baffle me was nutrition on a long ride such as this. Everything I read about long rides said you need to make sure you drink enough water and also consume enough calories and carbohydrates during the ride so you don’t bonk. I stay away from sugar as much as possible and if you look at all the gels and energy drinks they are all full of sugar, so I didn’t quite know what to do.

About a week before the Century, someone told me about “Hammer” products which do not contain a lot of sugar. I did some research on their website and came up with a plan, which I tested the week before the century on an 80 mile ride. I didn’t eat anything the morning before the ride, but used Hammer’s Perpetuem powder (mixed with water) as well as their Endurolytes (electrolyte replacement) and a few of their gels . I ended the ride with additional energy, so figured my plan would work for me and I was good to go for the century.

The morning of the century I was excited and felt I was ready for it. The ride starts out very early in the morning at the Irvine train station and then goes south along some beautiful coastal stretches. They said the ride is “flat”, but it really has some rolling hills throughout and although I had heard about Torrey Pines I didn’t realized how “big” a hill it really is. I took it slow and easy going up and I really felt I had accomplished something when I finally got to the top.

The last 10 miles of the ride was hard for me, after 8+ hours I was just feeling I was ready to get off the bike! I did finish the ride and the train ride back was fun even though my husband and I had forgotten our ice chest full of goodies. I was tired at that point, but I also felt a wonderful sense of accomplishment. We had met some wonderful people on the ride and we are already planning how to do the ride next year-- just a little bit faster!