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Yesterday I rode a 200k (that's 130 miles), my first long ride in two months, and survived! Yay, me. In fact, not only did I survive - completing the rather flat course from Moorpark to Ventura to Malibu to Point Mugu to Camarillo to Moorpark in 8:05 - but I was the first to finish! How cool is that? I have to confess, the usual hotshots were missing; it is December, and a lot of people [apparently] had other things to do on a winter's day than ride their bikes, but still... it was an amazing feeling to pass the leader at 90 miles and ride for two hours knowing that I was tete de la course. I kept thinking of pro races where the breakaways are often caught by the peloton with just a few miles to go, but of course in this kind of ride there is no peloton, just a bunch of people riding, and nobody has team cars or radios or anything like that. I did get some cramps with about 15 miles to go, and stopped at a liquor store and bought a liter of Coke (!), and kept worrying that people would pass me while I was in the store. But in the event I won by over ten minutes.
It was a beautiful day, a rather balmy 60o at the 6:30AM start and it stayed in the 70s for most of the day, cooling down a bit as some cloud cover descended mid afternoon. There was wind - in fact a rather stiff wind - and in the way of such winds it was a headwind in every direction... but it wasn't that bad. And at just the right moment, as I was riding down PCH my philosopher iPod began playing... All the leaves aren't brown I've been safe and warm So, another day spent in the saddle, my last long ride of 2008. I ended up doing 2 centuries (100 miles) and 11 super centuries (over 100 miles), including 6 doubles (200 miles). Amazing, at the start of the year I would never have thought it. Who knows what next year will bring?
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