Just last week, I hit my 100 Mile Weekend milestone, but this morning, I hit 100 miles on a bike in a single practice! 102 to be exact, in 6:02. The schedule was to do 90 mile minimum or 6 hours, whichever comes last. We started on Ocean and San Vicente, odd birthday years went first, even numbers went up to 4th st on San Vicente (a little backward), just to break up the chunks of groups. The route took us from Santa Monica up PCH, a little detour up Encinal Canyon for a mile, continue north on PCH until it pretty much ended as a small highway (it begins to be a major freeway after thaht), exited Los Robles, headed east towards the Camarillo Outlets, then back.
I felt really great throughout the ride – it’s probably a combination of what I ate last night (chicken & brown rice), planned nutrition, and my improvement in overall fitness week by week. I was able to push myself by speeding up with intervals, and take advantage of the downhills. It’s scary but exciting that I feel more comfortable just letting go and enjoying the ride. As far as nutrition, I didn’t change anything I consumed, but I did change a setting on my watch where it would beep every 15 minutes to remind me to drink and/or eat. The worst part of the ride was in the Los Robles area, where nasty headwinds occurred heading back to PCH. I was wondering why I was going 30mph outbound, but going against the headwinds held me back to 11mph-ish. The ride back on PCH felt like it went by pretty quickly, as it felt a little routine. At times I would just enjoy the views of the ocean, birds flying in formation, cars zipping by – the whole experience of it.
By the time I got back to Santa Monica, we did our usual Amalfi Loop (Amalfi is a famous bike/run street here). After riding 90 or so miles, those hills were just torture, but we handled it. We circled the Brentwood Golf Course, and did a few out and backs to top over 100 miles! Oh but wait! Practice was not over. A 30 minute run immediately followed, and man oh man, my legs were not cooperating! I was running at a pretty quick pace at first (around 9 min), then 11, then 12ish. Here was my one and only thought: “How am I supposed to do 26.2 miles after a 112 mile bike ride?!” Things eventually stabilized, and it wasn’t too bad after all. It’s so weird I tell ya… but loving every minute of it!