Today I participated in the Champions Ride for Charities, an event that benefits first responders in Florida.  I was very excited to ride this morning.  I was doing my first metric century!  100km or 66 miles, whichever measure you prefer.  🙂  It was a beautiful morning to ride.  A little on the cool side for Florida in October, overcast, and maybe a little rain was forecast for the day.

The Ride

At 8:10 am, the relatively large group of people riding the metric century left from the AAA campus in Lake Mary following a pace car.  We spread out pretty quickly and I was setting a relatively easy pace for myself.  After all, while I’m confident in my ability to hold 16mph for long distances, I’m less confident I can go faster than that for longer distances, especially as I was riding by myself today.

That state did not last long.  I found myself in an impromptu peloton shortly after leaving the first SAG station (around 13 miles into the course).  It ended up being a relatively large group, probably between 15 and 20 of us for maybe 7 or 10 miles.  Then the group broke up during a miscommunication at a stop sign.  After that, I and 2 other men chased down the original leaders of the group.  Soon, we arrived at the second SAG station.  After eating some food (including pickles. Mmmm, pickles), I and one of my original group members started out slow, expecting to be caught by the faster group that we had chased down earlier.

Soon enough they did catch up and pass us.  However, we chased them down and I found myself in a group of people that included a couple training for a half-triathlon and gentlemen who is an ultra-marathon runner.  At that point, things got faster.  J  At one point, the ultra-marathoner was pulling at 25mph for about 5 miles.  Not so surprisingly, we reached the third and final SAG station quickly.  That particular SAG station was at Fort Mellon Park in downtown Sanford.  It was gorgeous!  By that point, the sun was out and the water of Lake Monroe was a perfect blue.

We didn’t set quite such a blistering pace for our final 10 miles.  Nevertheless, I completely bonked in the last 2 miles and had to watch the group I ride with for so many miles pull ahead of me.  Despite that, the whole day was exhilarating and I can’t wait for my first century later this year.

Event Day Statistics

This is the course charted by me as I participated in the 66-mile route. I forgot to turn off the computer so it did pick-up my ride home … in a car.

Thanks!
Shawn