Belmar Beach
28 June 2021
It's June and I haven't done a century. I post a Sunday pick-your-distance ride on a near-perfect weather day. There are no takers. It's a Hallmark holiday for breeders. I move it to the following Saturday.
All the Slugs sign up, plus four more. I'm less than sure that I'm ready for this. I make extra cold brew for the century folks showing up at my door for the 8:00 a.m. start. Nobody wants any now. Ricky says, "I'll take you up on your offer after the ride."
Pete and Martin have ridden in. Ricky, Brian, and Albert drove. Bob is supposed to be here, but he isn't. There's no text on my phone, so I figure he's run into traffic and gone to Mercer County Park instead.
We're half a mile from the park entrance when Jack H find us and doubles back. Bob greets me sheepishly, having lost track of time during his early-morning putterings. Ming comes towards us with a bag full of individually-wrapped, homemade energy bars.
This is the first century for Ming and Albert. I advise them to drop their speed, eat, and don't get adventurous with food choices (side-eye to Bob).
It's cloudy today. Jim had emailed me last night, worried that we'd be under the threat of rain all day. I'd checked my most reliable sources, NOAA and AccuWeather, both which had single-digit rain probabilities. Still, I've put my camera in a plastic bag, just in case.
The wind is out of the south. That should help us a little on the way home.
For now, we're heading east towards Etra Park, where we'll pick up Tom and Jim. Pete is going to leave us there and go back home, which will make it ten of us headed down the shore.
The first rest stop, the Minit Stop in Jackson, is 33 miles into the ride. So far, the going has been relatively easy.
When we reach Belmar Boulevard, we get spread out. When only half of us get across Route 34, we wait. And wait. A couple on the porch in front of the house where we've stopped offers us water, but we decline. We're only a few miles from the beach. We wait some more, then make a few calls. Albert connects with Martin but can't make out what he's saying. I give it a shot and find out that Ming had a flat. "Jim's putting his greasy head cloth back on," Martin says. Or I think that's what he's saying. "We'll be along in a few minutes."
The road is wet. We just missed a shower.
In Belmar, the boardwalk is damp, droplets hang from the metal railings, and the view out to sea is a wall of grayish white.
The mom-and-pop shop next to the Dunkin Donuts has been gone for a few years. In its place is pizza. Bob and Brian come out with slices that require two hands. The rest of us groan. "I'm riding upwind from you on the way home," I tell him. When he offers us some, we just wave our hands and laugh. This is mile 50. I eat the top of a muffin, half an energy bar, and down a cup of iced coffee. Martin, somehow, has trained himself to fast, and hasn't eaten a thing. That just doesn't work for me, nor, apparently, anyone else on this trip but Martin.
The next 25 are always the toughest for me, and I'm so used to it that I'm not even stressing about it.
We climb out of the coast into the no-man's-land of Allaire, Lower Squankum, and Howell. Directly in front of us, the sky is metallic gray. I'm hoping we're going around it as we turn left. But we soon turn right again. I stop.
"Guys, I don't like the looks of that cloud. I'm taking my hearing aids out. You'll have to speak a little louder." I zip them into the baggie my camera is already in. We turn north, directly into the rain.
It feels good. It cools us off, but not too much.
Again we get a little spread out; it's safer that way when it's raining this hard. We regroup under the Parkway overpass. We're already soaked; no point in waiting it out.
If I didn't know better, I'd say that even Jim is enjoying this. Everyone else thinks it's fun.
The rain lets up, giving us time enough to dry out. Except our socks and shoes. Those are hopeless. My gloves, soaked with sweat and now with rain, have been sliding around on my palms. It's time for a new pair, I think.
At 65 miles, my stomach growls. With one hand, I unwrap Ming's energy bar. I'll eat half of it.
This. Tastes. So. Good. I eat the whole thing.
We ride into another downpour, shorter than the first, and dry off again in time to stop at the Dunkin Donuts in Freehold.
Ming orders iced coffee. That sounds good. I get another muffin with my coffee and eat the same as I did 25 miles ago, this time pouring most of the coffee into my water bottle. I'm drinking from the other bottle, the one with electrolytes in it. I learned 7 centuries ago how bad dehydration can get. I'm not cramping today.
Albert asks, "Is it normal to feel tired around now?"
"Yep."
We bumble along, back to Etra Park, to drop off Jim and Tom. Bob takes off early, under a time crunch but still wanting to get 100 miles in. The beach pizza has treated him well. Ming lets slip that she used to be a marathon runner. "No quarter," I say, and Jim has some choice words of Slug-style encouragement.
We're straight into the wind on Cedarville Road. The gusts are kicking up too as we move west on Perrineville. We zigzag west and north towards Mercer County Park.
Albert asks, "Does anyone ever not finish?"
"You're gonna finish." I haven't been worried about him for a minute.
I'd been more concerned about Ming because I only met her last week. She's fast, but neither of us knew how she'd do over a hundred miles. I'd suggested she try 85 and then, if she still had energy, ride home with me then back to the park. I'd rethought that, too, and suggested she start from my house, but she decided to play it safe. Now that I know she's a powerhouse, I'm not the least bit worried about her not finishing. Her only choice now is whether or not to ride all the way back to her house and come back for the car. She decides to stick with us instead.
I've run out of electrolyte water. We have fewer than ten miles to go. I switch bottles. There's still some electrolyte water mixed in with the dilute coffee, and the taste is one that can only be overlooked by necessity.
I have my eye on starving Martin in my rear-view mirror. As we get to the end of the park, I suggest he break his fast on one of the meat sticks he's stashed. "Already did," he says, and we all get back to my house together.
Ming decides to go back to the park right away. Everyone else wants some cold brew.
I open up the screened porch and deliver water, orange juice, ice, cold brew, and a handful of blown glass cups from my first year. I do my best to stick with the orange juice, but the lure of Marrakesh Express cold brew, from the Dean's Beans sampler, is too much, and I have to try some.
Albert leans back. "Dean's Beans," he says. Now I'm going to have to split my coffee subscriptions three ways, between Dean's Beans, Acadia, and Homestead.
Ricky, Albert, and Brian pull themselves out of their chairs and head home. Martin, with 110 miles already, is looking at a double metric. I did that once, which was enough. He has some more coffee and hits the road.
I clean up, first the dishes, then Kermit (always clean the chain after a downpour), then myself.
The rigor mortis sets in while Jack and I are having dinner. My left knee is so sore I can't climb the stairs. I do extra PT.
I register for Jim's ride tomorrow morning at 8:00, get Beaker set up, and cancel soon after. It's past 11:00 now and I'm not ready for bed, let alone tired. There's no way I can get enough sleep after today's century to be able to ride with Jim tomorrow. I toss and turn until 1:00 a.m. This happens to me a lot after centuries. The late afternoon coffee helped not at all.
It's 8:30 when I wake up. I'm stiff, but nothing hurts, so I have breakfast and take Beaker out for a recovery ride.
It's hotter than yesterday, and windier. I stop once for a picture on Carson Road.
There are still cicadas here in north Lawrence, where the money and tall trees are. I ride through ETS, where they're the loudest, then avoid the hill on Carter Road by heading home. Cold Soil is nothing but wind all the way. I get back home with 17 miles, sweaty, but loose.
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