Armadillo Classic 105 Mile Route - I Did It!

Thanks to Mike for the Certificate :-)


Exhausted is one of the many words that can be used to describe how I feel right now.

It all started at 7:00 this morning when I sprung from my bed realizing that I if I didn't hurry I would miss the 8:00 start. I set 2 alarm clocks but managed to set one incorrectly and to not turn the other one on. My day was off to a rough start...thankfully I realized long ago that I'm not great about getting up when my alarm goes off (or doesn't) so I packed everything into the car last night. All I had to do was throw on some cycling clothes (that I had laid out) and brush my teeth and I was ready to go.

I arrived at the venue around 7:40...rushed to get my bike ready to go and hoped that I threw everything into my jersey that I needed...I called up Mike to let him know I had arrived and he met me in the parking lot...from there we headed to the start. The picture below gives a pretty good indication of what the start looked like...there were over 1000 riders at the event (not all of them started with us) since we were doing the 105 mile route we were allowed to head out before groups doing less miles.
Another shot off to the left once we got our place in line.
We started around 8:05. Working our way through the group was fairly difficult for the first 10 or so miles. The group was massive but we finally settled into an area less and less people. Each rest stop caused some of the crowd to disperse and once we hit "Dillo Door" which is the 30 mile checkpoint for the 80 and 105 mile routes things had really started to clear out.

Somewhere after the 30 mile mark I took these pictures. Still overcast...awwwww.
Picture of Mike.
Things were going relatively well until the 50 mile mark. The sun finally burned off the clouds so now we had wind, hills, and the heat to deal with. At some point I managed to lose Mike...I had picked up some speed going down a hill (he usually out climbs me so this is how I keep up) and he got a flat...I didn't realize he wasn't back there until a couple of miles later. We didn't meet back up until the 80 mile mark. After the 65 mile rest stop I started feeling a bonk coming on and immediately pulled off to the side, ate a Clif Bar, drank some fluids and relaxed for a little while...after about 5 minutes I had recovered and headed out again. This happened again at about the 75 mile mark...however this time I took considerably more time as I found it very difficult to eat anything ... eventually I started back and made it to the 80 mile rest stop where I stayed for about 30 minutes eating a good amount of food trying to get my energy level back up. I never fully recovered...but I was able to keep up enough energy to finish the ride. Even if that meant stopping at every rest stop from 80 onward.

Many areas on the ride were very lonely...I spent a couple of hours riding with no one in site.
Finally I made it back to where we started from. It made for a fairly long day but thankfully I had no equipment failures (even though sometimes I was hoping for something to give me a break!) This was my largest ride I have ever been in and my first Century ever! Austin Cycling Association did an EXCELLENT job organizing the course and making sure everything was well marked...lots of food/water/Gatorade at the rest stops and a lot of fun people. Speaking of which there were a couple of groups from Team In Training that were out there. They were a lot of fun and I think if I ever decide to do a large out of town event I'll be going with Team In Training.

Also check Bike Noob for a shot of Mike and I.

J