Century Virgin No More!

While most people were chillin', grillin' and setting off fireworks yesterday, Ross and I embarked on our longest bike ride to date-- a century (100-mile bike ride)!

We picked the Elephant Rock course since, from what we heard, it is very similar to the Ironman Wisconsin course. Hills, hills and more hills. Here's the elevation for the course:
As you can see, no real flats.

Wanting company with our misery (kidding) we invited some fellow tri-club peeps along who are also doing IMMOO-- why not ALL enjoy the 100 miles of fun, fun, fun? So, we met up and rode with Joey, Kelly and Matt-- all seasoned and superior bikers.

We started out around 8:20 with our steady climb up. It was fun to have companions along the way. Ross and I don't get that too often since we do most of our long rides during the week, when others are working. There was some great views of Pikes Peak on this part of the route. It was pretty much steady climbing till around 25 miles, then it was hill after hill after hill. It was kinda fun in a masochistic kinda way.

Before we knew it, we were at 50 where Gaye met us with water and to join in on the fun!
Then, more hills. There is a road called "Roller Coaster" which totally lived up to its name. Joey said that if you pedaled hard enough on the downhills, you could pretty much make it to the top of the next. He lied. Either that or I really don't pedal good on the downhills. (I'm still going with him lying.)

At one point, the three of them were off, out of sight. Wow! we thought. They really took off. It was shortly after this, I got a flat. Quick stop, change tire and as we were about to head off when... some bikers came pedaling up. Gaye joked that it was them lapping us. We laughed, but it turns out it was them. They had taken off for sure, but in the wrong direction and they were just catching back up to us.

So we continued on with a few more ups.
And then came to the descending. Yay! (No pictures from this part. Too fast and scary to take.)

It wasn't long before we were at Palmer Lake.

Potty Stop

And then heading back "home".

More pretty views as we biked. I don't think I will ever get tired of looking at the mountains.

Before we knew it, we were back in the Douglas Fairgrounds where we started. Ross and I were amazed that we felt as good as we did! The farthest we have really biked this year was 60ish miles in the mountains and this felt "easier" than that (not that riding 100 is easy by any means). But we felt good and like our training has been paying off. And Kelly affirmed that this course was a lot like Wisconsin's course (she did it in 2007), so that made me feel even better.

After, we sat and chatted with Kelly, Matt, Joey and Gaye and promised to meet up on more long workouts in the future. If anything is going to help ease this training it is having more training partners-- glad we found 'em! IMMOO here we come.