Centurion Canada

SV and I took part in the Centurion Canada event yesterday.  It was a beautiful day for a long ride and the route through the Collingwood area was nice and challenging as always.   This race was hard to get excited for,  I was dreading it actually.  I know in my athletic past I have been on my bike for a lot longer than 160km, but that was a few years ago and as it turned out this summer, we just didn't get out for many long rides.  Since coming back from the huge bike week in AZ in early May, we did a handful of 100+km rides...the last one being in late June.  I tried to think of this race as a long group ride with a bunch of strangers but I was prepared to suffer  because of the lack of training.  SV was going to try and get into the fast group and hang on for as long as he could.  I thought we would be able to stick together for the "neutral rollout" but once the horn went off... Mayhem...5 miles of people trying to get to the front and slamming on their brakes while screaming "SLOWING"...I am not a cyclist and I am not your typical type A personality but those 5 miles were the worst for me...it was kind of like being in traffic on the 401...crawling a long for no reason then speeding up and having to slam on the brakes...but if everyone could just be chill and drive at a reasonable pace things would be fine.  My HR was 150 or above for that whole 5 miles and all the while I was thinking of the first climb we would be hitting at the end of those 5 miles and it was a nasty one.
It turned out to be an interesting day for me.  I lost sight of SV during the first nasty climb but knew he would have a great day.  I started experiencing slight cramping in my calves at 10km, not a good sign, but I made some adjustments and was better.  Eventually I heard Andrew H and we spent the next 90km together in a pretty good group, it was awesome to watch Eon D'ornellas ripping up the road and keeping the group in good pace and etiquette.
My body on the other hand wasn't having the best time, my quads started protesting at 42km.  I tried to massage and stretch them the best that I could and for the most part did pretty well at staying ahead of the cramping.  The race has a  King of the Mountain portion, which you hit at 120km(ish)  it is at this point that the group I was in broke apart, people really start to suffer. I felt pretty good going up that climb and once I got to the top had to push hard to catch a group of men in front of me...my quads were angry and they recruited my hamstrings to try to make their point clear...my legs were hating me, lol.  At 140km I realized how quiet it had become, the social chit-chat was gone, people had their heads down and were slowing.  For me though this was the point I just needed to be done..I kept talking to my legs telling them that they weren't allowed to cramp. I encouraged those I was passing and I just tried to get each km done as quickly as possible....the best moment came when I saw the caution sign for the decent back down into the valley...best 4km ever..top speed was 88.2km/hr on the downhill, WOOHOO!!
In the end, although my legs were cramped and angry with me, I was proud that I pulled out a strong ride with the little training I had done for it.  I placed 3rd in my age category and I stayed the same amount of time behind SV as I was last year.  (SV suffered out there too with quad and hamstring cramps but managed to stay with a strong group and earned a 15min PB!)
This is us at the finish line where kidlets and friends were waiting, Happy to be done!