So I did the Marin Century ride today, which was quite an event. The longest ride I had done before was 45 miles up to the top of Mount Tam, so this was a change! Mostly it is just a long time to be riding a bike. There are several large hills on the route as you can see on the map and there was a bit of a cross wind and head wind from time to time. But, overall the weather was quite good. Sunny with a cool breeze most of the day as we were near the coast. The early morning views of valleys with clinging pieces of fog were classically Californian coast. There were 4 rest stops on the route, all with lots of good food and drink and restrooms. I had lunch part 1 at the second rest stop and lunch part 2 at the third rest stop. After about 60 miles my ass was starting to hurt - not surprisingly it continued to hurt more for the rest of the ride. My left calf threatened cramp up but never did. My right knee got a bit twingy after 80 miles and around 95 started to hurt if I put much force on it, so I mostly used my left leg to get me up the last big hill then coasted the rest of the way in. I thought it was interesting that I wasn't really slowed down by my cardio or my length strength but more due to the rest of me wearing out. That is to be expected I think since I didn't build up slowly to a 100 miles. The book The Complete Book of Long-Distance Cycling was pretty handy tool for figuring out what I needed to do to train, but I only had 6 weeks and there is only so much one can do. Oh and my right big toe had the outside edge go numb, but it's done that ever since that fateful backpacking trip in '98 so I was expecting it. I wore a lot of sunscreen but got a little bit burned on the back of my calves as the sun shifted around. I also had some king of bug fly into my shirt and get caught which involved me then pulling over and frantically trying to let said bug out as I could hear it buzzing around under my jersey. Eventually I got it to fly out of my sleeve! The total route was 106 miles with 6250' of elevation. From start to finish was about 9 hours for me. I was on my bike for 7 hours and 15 minutes, so lunch, rest stops, and bug removal definitely took up some time. My average speed was 14.3 MPH while I was on my bike. Definitely nice that they had a good spread of food when I finished (including free hagen-daz ice cream!) I certainly slept well that night. :)