First ever Century ride indoors on a trainer...

Yesterday, I decided to make it my "eat and drink anything day". My plan is to do 6 days of good eating and one day of eat and drink anything. I think it makes sense to make my "eat and drinking anything day" on Friday's. It gives me a chance to carbo load for my Saturday long bike rides.

Yesterday was "pizza and beer" carbo loading. I was a good boy, I only had 8 beers and most of one large Domino's thin crust vege pizza. I also had some wings and Christmas chocolates. All with no guilt.

I was and wasn't looking forward to today's scheduled 5 hour and 15 minute bike ride. My hope was that it wouldn't feel too bad. However, I was worried that it would be unbearable mentally. I wanted to get up early to get it over with, but opted to wake up when I felt fully rested using no alarm.

I got up at 8:30 am and had a decent sized breakfast. I prepared everything for my ride. I had my computer set up, TV on, newspaper and Sirius satellite radio. It was mentally hard from the beginning, I felt irritable. I took a picture of myself at the 1 hour and 20 minutes, at which point I felt like I was on the bike for 4 hours. I started asking myself "why am I doing this again". All the pain of doing an Ironman came back to me. Although I wasn't going to allow myself to quit.

I was getting frustrated about my speedometer again. I changed the battery and it worked well for about an hour and then started screwing up again. I changed the tension on the roller to the middle and for some reason it started giving accurate readings. Later on in the ride I had the problem again and accidentally realized it was because the sensors were getting wet from the sweat. When I wiped it dry, it started to work perfectly.

A key turning point of the ride was when I started watching Lance on YouTube. It was inspiring and instantly my cadence and speed improved. For the next two hours my brain got in the zone and time seemed to be moving quicker. At the three hour mark I was getting hungry, so I got off the bike for 5 minutes and ate a bowl of Special K. Which lately seems to be my Special friend.

From the 4.5 hour point to finish, time was moving slow. My legs were working and my heart rate was starting to fall below 130 bpm. I wanted to keep it around 134 bpm and forced myself to increase the pace and resistance. Johan Stemmet was twittering me encouragement and at the 30 minute to go point, sent me a tweet. He said "half a hour to go, Push, Push, Push", it was exactly what I said to myself 30 seconds earlier.

With 15 minutes to go I got a comment on my blog from Judymac in France. The first paragraph said:

Hi Bryan, I just want to thank you, you have been a real inspiration to me. Each Sunday I sit down and watch your Training Payne video and sing along. The rest of the week is Triathlon training :)

It's funny, she said I inspired her and her comment couldn't have come at a better time. It inspired me to finish the last 15 minutes mentally and physically strong. It was a godsend. It's funny she mentioned about my video. At the 2 hour point of the ride I watched my Vlog from Monday, which had see saying my number one goal is to "qualify in China for Hawaii". Watching that helped me mentally.

My ride was scheduled for 5:15 and it turned out it was just enough time to do just over 100 miles. It was my first Century ride of the year and my first Century ever indoors on a trainer. It was also my longest ever ride indoors by 75 minutes. Afterwards I felt great. I was shocked. I had a hot shower and asked Alice if she had any errands we needed to run. I was ready to go!

Lastly, I was sweating a LOT on this ride. Two pairs of socks, two towels and my jersey were completely soaked. When I picked them up to put them in the wash, they felt like they weighed 10 lbs. Before I stared my ride, I was going to set up a fan and open the patio door slightly to allow the cold air in, but decided against it. I figured not having them would be better to help me acclimatize for China.

Today, what got me through the ride the most, was listening to Howard Stern. Only 13 more weeks of indoor long rides until China.

Long Bike - 5:15:00 / 162.22 km / 30.9 kph / 130 avg hr