The Solvang Century landed this year smack dab in the middle of mine and Katie’s birthdays.  We thought this sounded like the perfect way to celebrate!  Who doesn’t want to ride 100 miles for their birthday?  I’ve never done an organized century and I’ve heard great things about Solvang.  Katie and I stayed with my grandma in Santa Maria on Friday night.  We had a blast taking her out to dinner at the Olive Garden! Yum, carb-loading!

Katie and I got up at 5am, strapped the bikes on the car and headed south to Solvang.  When we arrived there were already cyclists out on the road.  We found parking, admired the cute little town, decided to stay in town next time, checked in at registration, and started the challenging part of the day, deciding what to wear.  People were wearing everything you could imagine from shorts and a jersey,  to pants with  full shoe-covers, hats, and jackets.   We finally decided on knickers, arm-warmers, toe warmers, and vests, and we were OFF!

It was a little cold starting out, but the sun was out so I knew it would warm up, and I HATE carrying extra stuff if I don’t need it.  I was little nervous about how I would feel on the ride. My training rides leading up to Solvang were only about 40 to 60 miles.  I was really worried I’d get to mile 80 and want to die.

The morning was really fun, HUGE packs of cyclists would fly by us and Katie and would just hop in and FLY with them as long as we could. Effortlessly cruising at speeds of sometimes 27 mph. FUN!  We would typically hit a hill and be dropped like we weren’t even pedaling. It was always fun while it lasted.  We made sure to “get our money’s worth” at all the rest stops by eating as much as we could. We would randomly find some big dudes to ride behind, as the winds were ridiculous.  We were happy to pull as well, but lots of dudes couldn’t handle girls being in their groups and would drop us just because they were stupid.  We would usually just pass those groups when we’d find another group willing to work with us.  Dummies.  I guess being pulled by a girl makes you feel like less of a man?Katie and I got a huge kick out of this guy.  It was a tandom set up for a kid on the back (see those little legs!).  The dad was riding with his young son on the back!  Whoa. In the picture Katie is up talking with him to his right.  He rode with his son on the back for the first half, and then traded kids and rode with his daughter the second half.  Too cute!

Here’s the climb graph of the century.  I said earlier I was a little nervous about how I’d feel after mile 80.  Well, I never looked at the graphs or the map or anything (if it’s not a race sometimes I like to be surprised so I don’t worry about things that are out of my control).  I’m not sure if you can see the numbers or not, but basically that HUGE climb at the end…that starts right around mile 80.Needless to say not knowing how long I was climbing (and it was relatively gradual) I was not feeling great at mile 80.  I was actually feeling pretty bad. I was wondering how I was going to make it to mile 100…..moving at about 8 mph.  UGH torture.  Luckily for me around mile 87 or 90 we started our decent…..and other than a few minor bumps in the road….the decent carried us all the way back to the finish! It was so fun and fast, every ride should end like that!

Tags: cycling, Ironman Triathlon, Solvang Century

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