Belmar Beach
23 July 2023
Con: The muscle strain next to my herneated disc hasn't completely healed.
Con: Between the heat, the smoke, and the rain, I haven't trained for long distances this year.
Con: I've only tested Janice's new stem on a 14-mile round trip bike commute to work.
Pro: Saturday's weather.
Pro: Saturday's weather.
Pro: Saturday's weather.
Five other people also thought a hundred-mile ride to Belmar would be a good idea. Heddy, Rickety, Martin, and I left my house at 7:30 a.m. Front-loading the ride with miles, we went the long way around towards Franklin Corner Road, scooping up Our Jeff after we crossed Princeton Pike.
Normally, Kermit and I do at least the first 25 miles in the small ring. I'd learned the hard way not to use the big ring too early. Janice's fit felt pretty good though. I was in the big ring. She's geared low, so I figured I could get away with it.
As we passed the skating rink entrance in Mercer County Park, we crossed paths with aother Freewheeler group about to start their ride.
I wasn't sure where we'd be meeting JackH. He'd signed up for "100++," meaning he'd be riding in from PA. Not having heard from him, I was going to skip the East Picnic Area pickup spot entirely, but at the last minute decided better safe than sorry. We took the bike path, over the wooden bridge, to get there. JackH was waiting, with yet another group of riders setting out for the day.
"I was getting worried," he said. "I thought you might have skipped this stop."
"You never told me where to meet you," I reminded him.
The group we'd passed before came riding in from the wooden bridge. They kept on going. The other group left. Eventually we did too.
At Etra Lake Park, Plain Jim and Pete G were waiting. "I just texted Tom to tell him you were pulling in," Jim said.
"Oh, good. That's why I told him 'one of us' would text him. I knew I'd forget." The plan was to pick him up at our first rest stop.
This Choose-Your-Distance ride requires a lot of logistics.
Our Jeff said he couldn't remember if he'd done a century before. "If you've forgotten, it doesn't count," the rest of us agreed. This let us impart all of our hundred-mile wisdom upon him, which any noob can take with a grain of salt, because this form of torture is different for everyone. Our Jeff, leader of the Wedsnesday Premed ride and of AMC hikes, is always prepared. He had a Camelbak of a size that would compare favorably to that which Statler hauls around.
The route to Belmar is more or less the one passed down to me from Big and Little Joe. While I described it as flat in the ride calendar, that's only relative to the rides I usually lead. This one would have 2700 feet of elevation gain over 100 miles, which isn't nothing. When we hit the first rollers, I moved into the small ring. I was starting to feel a little pull on my back. Damnit. I paid close attention to my posture, doing my best to sit as upright as I could to protect my back. Fortunately, with the new stem, I can comfortably rest my hands on the flat part of the bar, something I didn't do much of at all before.
Tom was waiting for us at the Minit Stop in Jackson. I took advantage of a patch of moss to lie on my stomach like a seal to push the fluid between L5 and S1 back into place. It's been years since I've resorted to this sort of PT during a ride, but better safe than sorry.
Lately, I've also been arching my back at every red light, another quick way to move fluid to where it belongs. I've been doing this while still clipped in with my right foot. I noticed that this position was putting strain on the muscle I'd just spent weeks trying to un-strain. Damnit.
When we crossed over the causeway at the Manesquan Reservoir, I clipped out with both feet to get pictures of the water.
We were beyond the rollers now, and with a tailwind, we sailed through Farmingdale and on through beach traffic to the shore. Despite this being the first good beach day in forever, the traffic wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I was pleasantly surprised that, unlike every other time I'd been here, a lot of the bathers didn't have size zero bodies and weren't ashamed to bare them.
The sky looked interesting. When I tried for photos as I was standing on the boardwalk, the sun was so bright I couldn't see what I was taking pictures of.
For me, miles 50-75 are the worst. I feared the worst, considering I hadn't trained for this. I'd done two rides longer than 60 miles, but they were months ago. I made sure I was fed and caffeinated. I warned the century folks that there were hills and a headwind coming up. I reminded them again not to go chasing the 68-milers.
Around mile 70, Tom turned off for home. I thanked him for helping to keep the pace sane. He'd been pulling us for a while.
Sitting up in the small ring, and standing in the pedals once in a while to stretch my back, I made it all the way to our rest stop at mile 72 without hitting the psychological wall I expected to crash into.
I was on the fence about getting more cold brew. I bought that and water, mixing them into my second bottle. My first bottle I kept full of electrolytes from tablets whose brand name I'm not going to give free advertizing to.
We were in the home stretch now: 12 miles back to Etra and another 17 to the finish. Between us and Etra were more rollers. I regretted not having plain water, but it was too late now. Fortunately, the mild headwind hadn't picked up much, and we had some shade and clouds to help us out.
By the time we got to Etra, I could feel the century fuzziness kicking in. When this happens, and it usually does, I feel a little foggy and my breathing is faster than usual when I'm not moving. I flopped down in the grass to do the seal thing again for a count of 60, then ate half an energy bar. (For years, I've used Balance peanut butter bars because they don't freeze in the winter and don't melt in the summer. Unfortunately, they aren't available anymore, and I'm dealing with chocolate-coated substitutes that just aren't cutting it. For this ride I made my own little peanut butter sandwiches, but they were small so that I could fit two of them into one pocket. They turned into mushy messes as badly as my melted bar. I need to revise my food game.)
We parted ways with JackH when we entered Mercer County Park. I could feel my right calf trying to cramp as we climbed the railroad overpass on the way to Route 1. We waved goodbye to Jeff halfway down Franklin Corner Road. We made the left onto Princeton Pike, a mile from my house, a hill between us and home.
And that's when all the muscles in my right leg decided it was time to cramp in unison. I was not having it. We were halfway up the hill, half a mile from the end. I powered through, pointing and flexing my foot until the cramp subsided. We coasted into my street, reaching 100 miles exactly.
I served Rickety and Martin some cold brew, drank a can of seltzer water, stumbled around the house a bit, downed a pile of pickles and half a glass of milk, got into the shower, and was convinced that I was minutes away from throwing up. My left foot cramped, which was weird to feel, let alone see, my toes all pointing outward. I wanted to drink more water, but now I was afraid to swallow anything.
I'd agreed to fetch Jack from the train station in an hour. I decided to lie down and do some PT first. Then, when I tried to stand up, I nearly threw up. I texted Jack again, telling him to get an Uber, and collapsed on the bed.
This isn't the first time in 67 century rides that I've wound up horizontal. I knew my errors: not enough sleep, big ring in the first 25 miles, too much caffeine, not enough plain water, not enough food, and, most of all, nowhere near the distance training I ought to have had before doing this ride. On the other hand, the weather, and my obligatory century for the season.
I fell asleep for a bit. When Jack got home, he brought me water. I sat up, drank it, and found myself ravenous. That was a good sign.
In the months after I'd PT'd my way out of the herneation the first time, my back would hurt on long rides and I'd have to stop and stretch. I think that's going to be the case for the rest of this summer. When I was recovering, I hadn't done the Guru bike fit. After the fit, things were better. That was ten years ago, though. I think I'm going to have to go through the rest of this summer taking stretch breaks and tweaking the fit on my bikes. I'm sure Janice's new stem helped, but I don't know if this fit is the final one. We'll see how I do with the Premeds on Wednesday.
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