Center Hundy thoughts.....

Thanks for all the well wishes on the blog and via email.

Yes it actually was fun.
Yes I did get dizzy after 14 times through Denmans.
Yes I now have it memorized (middle ring, 3rd gear, 45 revolutions, slight left, 15 rev, hard right, 5 then root, etc.)
Do it again? Maybe.....

I did take a few hours off work on Monday afternoon to let my body catch-up. That was a 1st in my quest for the centuries.

Other interesting tidbit of info. Many of you might know how anal I am about tracking stuff like mileage, times, etc. It keeps my mind active during the ride. I wrote down lap times each stop at the car.
1- 1:28 (lights and dark for most of it)
2- 1:14 (met the fast guys halfway through denmans)
3- 1:18 (Rick kept the pace up)
4- 1:18 (I thought I had backed down the pace)
5- 1:20
6- 1:21
7- 1:19 (rode the loop backwards to see if it was faster, didn't feel faster)

I find it good (but odd) that I was soo consistent. Maybe it was the familiarity of Denmans by the end of the day. I would have thought my climbs in hillside would have slowed me down, but I was trying to push the short climbs in that section.

Lastly, a few have asked why?????

It all started with a Bicycling magazine article many years ago (10?). I remember reading the motivational last page, and the author talked about riding a road century each month of the year. I remember thinking how cool that he picked a challenge and stuck to his goal even through adversity. Flash forward to 2007 and Dave Mable creates the Cup O'Dirt challenge. I monitored from afar but didn't give it a try. For 2008 he upped the challenge to include a century or metric century for each calendar month. It triggered the old Bicycling mag article in my brain and I thought "Why not?". I probably wouldn't have started it if it wasn't for four other guys taking me under their wing on the 1st ride in January. I wanted to quite at 50 miles and they wouldn't let me.

So many thanks to Scott (Mr. BikeIowa), Brian, Dennis and Steve. If it wasn't for these guys, I'd be 30 pounds heavier and probably not as satisfied with life.

Tom