Father’s Day 2007
This post should also be called the Larry Lewis Invitational 100 miler. It is the day Larry invites his friends to join him for a 100 mile ride inside Prospect Park. I decided to join him and make it my first 100 miler of the year. I was really looking forward to this ride. I couldn’t even sleep the night before I was looking forward to it so much. It was like I had a big race in the morning and the excitement was keeping me from sleeping.
We met up at exactly 6am and we were joined by two other invitees for the start of the event. This was to be a no frills affair with no aid stations, rest stops or trips outside the park for replenishments. If you were lucky, someone who wasn’t completing the 100 miles would exit the park and return with Gatorade and bagels.
As the ride progressed, we started to add on additional riders as they came out to join us. Some riders just joined us as the saw our peloton passing by. Riders would come and go throughout our hundred miles. At one point I am sure we had close to 40 riders in our group.
It is amazing how much easier it is to ride around this park when you are part of a large group. Time just seemed to slip by as you were constantly engaged in conversation while riding. The draft from all of the riders made the ride feel effortless. I remember thinking to myself that it was taking a long time to do a slow loop around the park, because it felt so slow and easy only to discover that the loop was the fastest around the park yet. As the pack got really big we were easily averaging 19 miles per hour. It was almost as if we were one giant pack that stretched the entire length of the loop.
We didn’t make one stop during the ride, not even to go to the bathroom. This ride was the longest contiguous bike ride I have ever done. I went 101.5 miles without ever stopping. I am sure I’ve never ridden that far without coming to a stop at least once. Even in Ironman, you stop at special needs. I had 4 water bottles with me, two of them filled with Heed and two with water. I also had a flask of Hammer Gel and some other small snacks in my Bento Box. Towards the end, I realized I was running low on water, but it was close enough to the finish that I was able to ration it through the end. It really felt great to do such a long ride so effortlessly and without stopping.
After the ride, Larry, Willie and I went back to the park for a run. We saw a couple of people we were recently riding with and they couldn’t get over how riding 100 miles wasn’t enough for us. Unfortunately, I only had time to do one loop of the park with them. I had to get my family out to brother’s house in Long Island for a Father’s Day BBQ. When I came inside to shower and change I remember feeling very hot. I took a cold shower, but that wasn’t enough to lower my core temperature. Almost as soon as I got out of the shower, sweat started to burst out of my forehead and body. My daughter asked me why my shirt was all went, that’s how drenched from sweat I was. I needed a shower within minutes of getting out of the shower. I finally started to cool down on the ride out to Long Island by blasting my car’s A/C on me for the duration of the trip.
We met up at exactly 6am and we were joined by two other invitees for the start of the event. This was to be a no frills affair with no aid stations, rest stops or trips outside the park for replenishments. If you were lucky, someone who wasn’t completing the 100 miles would exit the park and return with Gatorade and bagels.
As the ride progressed, we started to add on additional riders as they came out to join us. Some riders just joined us as the saw our peloton passing by. Riders would come and go throughout our hundred miles. At one point I am sure we had close to 40 riders in our group.
It is amazing how much easier it is to ride around this park when you are part of a large group. Time just seemed to slip by as you were constantly engaged in conversation while riding. The draft from all of the riders made the ride feel effortless. I remember thinking to myself that it was taking a long time to do a slow loop around the park, because it felt so slow and easy only to discover that the loop was the fastest around the park yet. As the pack got really big we were easily averaging 19 miles per hour. It was almost as if we were one giant pack that stretched the entire length of the loop.
We didn’t make one stop during the ride, not even to go to the bathroom. This ride was the longest contiguous bike ride I have ever done. I went 101.5 miles without ever stopping. I am sure I’ve never ridden that far without coming to a stop at least once. Even in Ironman, you stop at special needs. I had 4 water bottles with me, two of them filled with Heed and two with water. I also had a flask of Hammer Gel and some other small snacks in my Bento Box. Towards the end, I realized I was running low on water, but it was close enough to the finish that I was able to ration it through the end. It really felt great to do such a long ride so effortlessly and without stopping.
After the ride, Larry, Willie and I went back to the park for a run. We saw a couple of people we were recently riding with and they couldn’t get over how riding 100 miles wasn’t enough for us. Unfortunately, I only had time to do one loop of the park with them. I had to get my family out to brother’s house in Long Island for a Father’s Day BBQ. When I came inside to shower and change I remember feeling very hot. I took a cold shower, but that wasn’t enough to lower my core temperature. Almost as soon as I got out of the shower, sweat started to burst out of my forehead and body. My daughter asked me why my shirt was all went, that’s how drenched from sweat I was. I needed a shower within minutes of getting out of the shower. I finally started to cool down on the ride out to Long Island by blasting my car’s A/C on me for the duration of the trip.
posted by Rebel at 9:00 PM
2 Comments:
Very cool ride! I have yet to make it out to Prospect Park... my boyfriend and I tried to go downtown after work last week, over the Brooklyn Bridge, and over to Prospect, but literally we couldn't get through the traffic heading downtown at rush hour! We gave up and went to Central Park :-/
I was wondering if you are planning on doing the NYC triathlon coming soon? If so, would you share a post on the experience with the Accelerade.com community site?
http://www.accelerade.com/team/Default.aspx
They sponsor the race, and I work on the community site. I think it would be fantastic to have posts on the site from the athletes who participate. The community has a lot of great features and content. I hope you take a moment to check it out.
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