Notes
tl dr version: This was a great 1st Century ride. Things went smoothly. Mostly.
long version:
Commuted to the Transportation center from the hotel (about 1.5 miles) and I managed to get an early start between 530-6am. Didn't even have to pick up my stuff in the morning because I did it the evening before. Breakfast was a cup of English breakfast tea and a Cliff Bar. My stomach was off from not sleeping as well the night before, and the body was in fight or flight mode so the gut was NOT working.
I just split the ride up into segments in my head and went for it. The first part was cool, not cold riding through Irvine residential areas. It was nice to ride by where my brother and sister-in-law used to live. There were a few little hills, nothing major. At some point a fog layer set in, so that was interesting. All in all I really enjoyed this first part of the route, except that sometimes it would be difficult to get around a pack of slow moving riders, or a pack of fast ones would whoosh by me. Also, there were lots of stoplights between the mini hill climbs so the pace was a bit draggy. I took a brief stop at Rest stop 1 near mile 25, then rolled onto the next segment.
I don't remember the next segment too well until we got on the bike trail which was near Camp Pendleton. At this point we started to ride parallel to the beach. Gorgeous. You could hear the ocean and see the waves. At some point I got behind a cyclist who had a portable speaker in a backpack. He was rockin' out. Funny. I saw an Amtrak train go by on the East side, and thought how appropriate. I stopped very briefly at Rest stop 2, wanting to push on into the 2nd half.
Then things got a bit ugly. We had to enter the 5 freeway. Ugh Ugh Ugh. I saw another cyclist at the entrance and queried him "do we *really* have to enter the freeway here?" Yes Yes. First time for him too. It was 5 miles of shoulder freeway riding with stupid cars and trucks whizzing by. OMG. I felt SO unsafe. Luckily, the shoulder seemed swept of debris. I powered through that section as fast as possible. Then we got off at Harbor Dr. and rode another weird crappy section that was along the beach on some side road filled with pedestrians, cars, surfers, dogs, you name it. There was supposed to be another aid station here but my freeeway friend and I couldn't find it. Neither could some other cyclists that we came upon. I didn't plan on stopping there anyway, so I just pressed on to the next road in the route. Later I found out that many other riders did not find this stop which was supposed to be the lunch stop I think. Oops.
The next part took us about 20 miles along Pacific Coast Highway near the beach where we could watch literally hundreds of surfers. It was beautiful. Again, the route was littered with stoplights. Also, there were a ton of walkers, beachgoers, and runners in the bike lane which presented quite the obstacle course. At DelMar there were many local cycling groups out riding as well, and I wound up talking with a dude who warned me that the police were ticketing riders in DelMar for not stopping at stopsigns, etc. Good to know. Nice guy. Another annoying thing happened in DelMar. There was a fast group of club riders out doing their own ride, and many of them were going the same direction as I was on the PCH. At a stoplight turn in the downtownish area, some lady yells out "right right right". I was going straight, but a pack of about 6 riders could care less and cut right in front of me nearly running me over in the process. I had to completely stop my bike lest I get plowed over. Sheesh. Not very nice. I realize that people like to work on their speed but I think this was quite rude behavior.
It was at the end of this section near mile 78 that they were hosting a little KOM/QOM timed section. They gave us RFID numbers to put on our helmet, and timed us from the bottom to the top of Torrey Pines hill, with an automatic photo being taken at the top. I worked super hard at this part, remembering all of those hilly rides I have done in training. This hill reminded me of Silver Creek Valley a bit. I was shocked when I passed several people grinding up the hill. Yay. It was exhilarating to summit, and I think this was the highlight of the ride for me. Edited to add: I missed QOM by 1 second! Feeling chuffed as the Brits say. :)
I stopped very briefly at the last aid station at the hilltop to eat half a cliff bar. I wasn't very hungry but knew I was starting to get low on carbohydrate, as my fueling was not quite as good as it should have been up to this point.
Finally, I was into new territory mileagewise after 80 miles. The markings on the course during this last segment were NOT GOOD. Several of us got a bit turned around looking for the entrance to the bike trails. Unless you were a local, it was confusing. I ended up riding a bit more than 100 miles because of this, but not too bad. At the junction to the "river bike trail", a bunch of us blew by it, but luckily found our way back within seconds. This next part was also into a headwind, which is a bit demoralizing at the end of a Century ride. I was getting a bit carb depleted at this point I think, because I was looking down at my route sheet when I should have been paying attention. How could I have missed that enormous bush leaning way into the trail????
Boom! Mile 93. I saw it a milisecond before hitting the plant, and fell quite ungloriously, scraping my left elbow and knee and scratching the hell out of my gps device. Dazed, I got up and thought to just get on my bike and start riding. Unbeknownst to me, my chain had come off and my handlebars were askew. Luckily, a couple of dudes came by, one with some antiseptic wipes. They made sure I got the chain back on, the handlebars straight and me upright! Thank God for those guardian angels. I followed them conservatively in to the finish and thanked them both profusely. Even in this portion there were a few turns that were confusing like "veer R to follow Bacon st". There was a solitary orange arrow on the ground exiting the trail that you could very easily miss, and no clear landmark...Later I would read on the Facebook page that one rider got so lost he had to Uber back to the route.
At last it was a turn onto Harbor Dr, and I knew a finish was in the bag. Oddly, I didn't feel all that sore, and unlike a marathon where I don't feel like I can run another step, I felt like I could keep pedalling. Ha. I was more amped up from falling perhaps. The lady at the finish handed me a finishers medal and said I was the first women to come in. Guess I started ahead of all of the other gals with the rolling start between 530 and 630 am, and had kept a decent pace throughout. Although the ride was not timed (except for the KOM climb), it made me feel good that I kept up a good pace. I think I can call myself a bona fide cyclist now, instead of a runner with a cycling problem. ;) K was there to greet me and take me to get a much needed Starbucks. I was so thankful he was there, otherwise it would have been a long wait for the bus ride back. All in all it was a great day for riding and finishing my 1st Century.
Other notes:
The ride was billed as one way from Irvine to San Diego with an Amtrak Train return. This year, the organizers were unable to secure the train for the riders and last minute booked "luxury buses". We found this out after signing up. It was irritating because the train ride was THE reason I wanted to do this century ride rather than others. As it turns out they refunded us 20 bucks, but I ended up not doing the bus ride back because K came with me and picked me up in San Diego. Such a sweetheart. He asked the organizer at the end why the train couldn't get booked this year and the guy said that Amtrak wouldn't do it because last year the cyclists trashed the train cars with drunk and disorderly behavior, bringing outside coolers on board and other "bad behavior". Wow. It only takes a few bad apples to ruin a good thing. :(
IN retrospect, I could have handled my fueling much better. I got low on carbs which contributed to being a bit fuzzy near the end. I ate a big bag of peanut M&Ms and half a cliff bar and 2 peppermints during the ride. It was a bit hard to eat because my system was messed up from travel food and not sleeping great. Pre-ride, I ate a cliff bar and drank some English breakfast tea. This was also different from the normal pre-ride routine where I have some espresso/latte which packs a bigger caffeine punch than tea.