#38

Springfield Meeting House Road, 109 Miles

1 June 2014

Neil's Ride, "Whichever Way the Wind Blows," was listed as a B+ 100-miler starting from Cranbury at 8:00 a.m. The distance and starting time I could handle; it was the pace I was worried about.  I emailed Neil to find out just how fast his B+ pace was going to be.

When he wrote back to tell me, he added that the distance was going to be 120 miles, starting from somewhere in Allentown, the exact location to be relayed later.  I wavered for about ten minutes.  If I can do 116 miles (to and from the Princeton Event century) in the heat of August, I damned well better be able to do 120 when it's only 70 degrees out.

On Friday Neil emailed again with the starting location.  And then again, because he'd forgotten to tell me that we'd be leaving at 7:00 a.m.

Glurk.

120 miles, no problem.  Allentown, no problem.  Getting up at 5:15 a.m. was going to be the biggest challenge of the day.  The trick is to get everything -- bike, water, clothes, coffee, sandwiches -- ready the night before.  (This gave me an excuse to try cold-pressing coffee for the first time. It came out well -- very smooth.)

There were two others, aside from me, Neil, and Mark, on the ride.  One, a seasoned randonneur named Jonathan, looked tough enough to get up Fiddler's Elbow without standing.  The other, Steve, hadn't done more than 60 miles at once all season.  "You're gonna hurt," Neil warned. Both are training for the Longest Day, a ride that I'd love to do if it didn't involve spending half the season doing century-plus training for.

If you're ever unsure about riding a century or more, ride with Neil and Mark. As goofy as they seem at first, when it comes to pacing, planning, and technique, they are spot on and dead serious.

I don't stop for pictures on rides like this.  I didn't even bring my real camera. Had I done, I'd have photographed the osprey nest on the marsh along the Bass River.  I might have been fast enough to get the osprey in flight, too.  I'd have been able to show you the brown reeds in the foreground, the pines in the background, and the perfect clouds in the perfectly blue sky.  I'd have taken pictures of the Pinelands ponds we passed and the rivers we crossed, of the burned Pinelands forest we could still smell, of the Pygmy Pines (a.k.a. the Pine Barren Plains) on Route 539 in Warren Grove.

Instead, I have this critter, clinging to the outside wall of the second Wawa we stopped at, north of Tuckerton, at 47 miles, next to Frog Pond Road:

The first 47 miles were easy.  A tailwind pushed us down Route 539, giving us an average higher than anything I've seen for that distance.  Neil, who doesn't have a computer on his bike, was surprised at the speed.  "It's gonna drop," he said.  We'd be into the wind from now on.

The wind shifted with us, so that it battered us when we headed west through the Pinelands and northeast, still in the Pinelands, towards Chatsworth.  Neil was at the front most of the time, because he was the only one who knew where we were.  I was right behind him for most of the ride.  Sometimes Jonathan or Mark would be second and I would be third. Steve, wisely conserving his energy, stayed in the back.  Once I dropped back at a trailhead, the only safe place to pee in the Pinelands; and even then, I spent as much time checking my legs for ticks as I did with my shorts down.

Neil had warned me that the last 20 miles are the roughest ones.  I already have rough miles: on a century, the second leg, the one between 50 and 75 miles, is the most difficult part.  I've learned how to stave off the 70-mile wall by eating something, hungry or not, at 65 miles.  I did that, and about ten miles later we stopped at a canoe rental shop (Mick's Canoes, south of Chatsworth) that had meager food, but clean bathrooms and picnic tables.

We stopped again at 94 miles, in Pumpernickel Tabernacle, at Nixon's.  There we sat at a picnic table under a tent, the guys eating massive lunches, me finishing the third half-sandwich (PB&J on Jack's homemade bread, of course) and a banana, plus the coffee I'd poured into my second water bottle.

We took our time.  I recited "Garden State Stomp" and "Jerseywocky." 

After that, Jonathan and I stretched on the grass. Steve lay on his back on one of the picnic benches. I think every century has a rest stop where people lie down.

Mark told us that we had "twenty-something-odd miles to go," and that soon I'd recognize where we were.  Soon I did, at the southwest end of Pemberton, with 20 miles to go. I needed to find a tree again, and got lucky at an outdoor plant shop with a porta-pot. 

Another porta-pot materialized at 109 miles.  I got a few photos while waiting for the guys.

 The clouds I contemplated at mile 109

Around then, maybe a few miles before, one of two things, or maybe both, happened.  It's when Steve and I had a burst of energy, and when Neil stopped pulling. For me, anything over 100 miles was gravy; anything over 116 would be a new record.  We were at 118 on Old York Road.  I took off, as much as one can take off into the wind at 118 miles.  Steve was not far behind me.

We finished with 121 miles.  Our average (having dropped like a rock as soon as the tailwind vanished) at 100 miles was the ol' century average from back in the days of Big Joe.  Our average at 121 was half a mile per hour under that.  Not that anyone's keeping track.

I did pull out my phone camera at the end.  Steve looked over and laughed.  "I'm documenting the atrocity," I said.

"Only 86 more miles and you'll have the Longest Day," Mark said.  Forget it. I think I might have Longest Day lust out of my system.

(For now?)

Here's the route, courtesy of Neil.