With about this level of reasoning my newly minted PhD friend SI and I (SD) set out to complete an item on the bucket list-bike commute from his home in Alabama to our home in Tennessee. Distance: 121 miles. Route: The beautiful rolling hills of the Natchez Trace.
To prepare for this ride, I had spent the past two weekends fixing up my bike which cost a lot more than I would have liked, but was cheaper than the $75,000 for an Everest climb. It would have been nice to also have done some training, but hey I've ridden 100 miles without training before and it was only the most miserable bike ride I have ever had. So what if this would be almost 20 miles further than I have ever ridden before.
The great thing about the Trace is that it has marker every (almost) mile, so that we could count down the miles left. Since we rode 100 miles on the trace, these markers also lent themselves to the world longest version of "99 bottles of beer on the wall..."
The first 60 miles were quite pleasant, full of sights and conversation. AM sagged us at the halfway point and although SI's heart rate monitor kept beeping to tell him he should be working harder, he didn't seem to mind, and we were able to maintain at least a reasonable pace.
Shortly thereafter, though, we hit a long, long climb that really took it out of me, and from then on, the ride stop being much about fun and was more just about finishing what we had started out to do.
From mile 80-95, I kept debating whether it would be best just to stop by the side of the road at the century mark and let SI ride on to finish as my pace had slowed to a crawl so that not only was he easily dropping me on every climb, but he was even dropping me on the downhills. But I figured by then I had ridden too far to quit.Thanks to the SAG support from CI and kids at the century mark, which included pouring a gallon of cold water on my head, I felt much better and was able to finish and that's all that really counts to a commuting cyclist like me.
