T-minus 5minutes and....

mornin'! It's currently 4:50 and I have a few minutes to kill before I have to pick Russell up at 5:30. Since traffic between here and there is basically non-existant at this time of day, it takes quite a bit less than 40 minutes to drag my butt down there.

Clothes for the ride set aside in a bag? Check.

Camera? Check.

Baggie full of bag balm? Check.

Helmet and shoes? Check. They're in the car.

The secret of a 100 mile ride is to think of is to think of the DISTANCE as nothing special. It's not. It's like a marathon, except less so. It's the meat and potatoes cycling long distance. So thinking of the DISTANCE as something hard is the wrong approach. Anyone, I think, who can keep pedaling can do a century. It's true that varying degrees of fitness will determine how much pain that person is in the next day, but if pressed, I think just about anyone can do one. Doing a century with FINESS and STYLE though is an entirely different thing.

The goal today is to do it as smoothly and as fastly as I can... that means getting Russell to work in a 2 person (or more) paceline for as much of the day as I can... riding in the bars or drops for as long as I can... keeping it in my 54x12 gearing for as much of the day as I can (the monster gear that I've pressed up to 40 on very slightly down terrain.)... and drinking and eating what i need so that I don't cramp up... that means keeping a banana on hand in case of potassium inbalance.

Anyway, I didn't want to make anything more of the century than it is. It's a bread and butter distance. I don't even think a double is anything more than that, though it is admittedly quite a bit harder... and if I do Denver-Aspen in August, (which I think I might do in lieu of the 5430) I'll be properly scared about that... there's 13000' of elevation gain on that! UGH.

Just for comparisons, the night before my first Ironman and I think my first century (I can't quite remember), I couldn't sleep at all. Level of freak-outedness was exponentially more before the Ironman, but when I did my first century I had never ridden more than 40 miles. Those 60 miles after mile 40 were virgin territory and it freaked me out a little. Those miles WERE hard that day because there were 30+ mph side winds that you had to lean into to stay upright, but it wasn't anything especially horrid. It could have been much worse (see the road construction on the Paul Bunyan story from a few years ago)

Tonight, I slept like a baby. No stress about this, and I think that that's where I'd love to be when I race IMFL next year. I probably won't be... just because then I'll be able to freak out about not having done the 2.4 in an ocean, but one can hope. Looks like it's 5:04 now, I should hustle out the door. I'll write more this evening!