Fight of a Century

My plan was ride to Gardner to take prom pics of my youngest daughter. It's about a 35 mile trip each way, so if you're in for 70 why not 100? I hadn't done a Century in almost three years, though I'd set out to a few times since my bypass surgery of two years ago.

I wasn't feeling it on the way down, I really didn't have my heart in riding and there was a stiff headwind to boot. Once Pushed through my moment of inertia, it felt pretty good to be out riding. And I'd just found out that I was in for RAGBRAI, something that's been on my bucket list for a few years now. I was going to do it either way, if I didn't come out of the lottery with a wristband, I was going to self-support and ride it anyway. Which would be a much, much bigger challenge.

Anyway, I was dead-ass slow going down to Gardner, only averaged 7.6 mph. That's slow even by my standards, I'm usually good for 9ish. And I'd overslept, and Corinna had been teasing me that I wouldn't get my century in if I didn't get up. She's asserted that you basically can't do a century in town, or a century when you start out at mid-day, and she says it like she hasn't observed me doing both these things, so it annoys me. But she hasn't seen me do it in three years, right?

So coming back, I decided fuck it, I'm not going home without three digits on my CatEye. I took the Indian Creek Trail coming back, got sick of the bugs, went up Lamar to Somerset, went over into Waldo, took 71st back over to Antioch, then around to Merriam Lane, Southwest Boulevard, through Downtown, the Power & White District, River Market, over along the Berkeley Riverfront, the East Bottoms.

I passed a lot of watch parties for Mayfield-Pacquiao, two guys trying their best to beat each other's brains out over a huge pile of cash, billed as the Fight of the Century. But we're just 15% of the way into the century so I tend to think this was just the fight of the last five or ten years. But what I was doing, I was fighting for a Century, for a three digit entry in the miles column on the spreadsheet I neurotically maintain. I did laps on Gardner Road, which is about two miles long, flat as all get out, and devoid of car traffic at 2:00 a.m., which is handy when your light batteries have all shot craps.

I made it in, too, with 102.03 miles. Not my furthest, I was tempted to try and do another loop to set a PR, but it was already 3:30 when I got home, super sore and tired.

Oh, do you want to see the fattest cat ever?