Solo Masochist Century Club's new member

I guess I will start with how I got to the decision. I missed the ride from ProBike Saturday morning by 5 minutes and took it as a sign that I needed to go home and clean up my yard from the hurricane and mow it. This took 5 hours and I was pretty tired especially after borrowing my friend Kevin's reel mower(old timey human powered mower). At 5:15 it struck me that I could finally do a 100mile solo ride Sunday morning on the North Trace since I didn't have orchestra at church Sunday morning. I rushed to the store to get some Powerbar Tangerine gel(mega caffeine) and a couple of Cliff bars. That night I got my bike ready and changed the battery in my bike computer but couldn't figure out how to get it powered up so I just took the computer off my mountain bike and put it onto my road bike.

Sunday woke up at 4:45 and cooked a couple of eggs and rice, let it settle and finished my morning routine and was on the bike at 6:14 when there was enough light to ride without a headlight but I did have my rear blinky on. The bugs were horrible and I couldn't take deep breaths or I would suck them in and head to keep my head down to keep them out of my nose and eyes. They were bad until full light which was around 7:45-8:00.

My goal was to average 18-18.5 mph and I was really struggling to maintain 18.5mph. At a known 20mile mark I looked down at my computer and it said 18.4 miles and it dawned on me that I didn't reset for the wheelsize difference. I back off the pace and stopped at mile 26 which was Choctaw Boundry stop and ate a banana and some gel and tried to reset the computer but couldn't.

At Hwy 16 the chip-seal pavement was rough but after a few miles, I stopped noticing. I turned around at the rest stop near Kosciusko and ate some M&M's and another banana while the mosquitos feasted on me . *scratching leg now* I reloaded my bottles and camelback and headed back. How wonderful it was when I got back on the smooth asphalt. I stopped at RiverBend to reload water since I had a constant stream of sweat running off the whole way, but the fountain was cutoff. I check the bathroom and the sink had running water so I gulped down 2 bottles before I started wondering why was the fountain off but the bathroom wasn't. "Was the water ok for sanitation and not drinkable? Am I going to get sick?"

The last 15 miles was where the struggle began. Everything up to that point was fine. Back got sore and when I stood up to rest my seat my legs felt like they wanted to cramp. I know I passed a few riders looking tired. I was.

I made it home though and by my watch I had ridden for 5hours and 26mins...excluding the stops. 18.9MPH!!!!!!!

Items of interest:

Wildlife:
1 fox(dead)
3 raccoons(dead)
1 6ft smake(thankfully dead)
2 tom turkeys
15-18 hen turkeys

Food:
2 Powerbar Tangerine gels
2 Cliff Bars
4 homemade secret recipe gels
2 bananas
1 bag of plain M&M's
powerade to reload water bottles