Michael and I are discussing doing the Portland Century in 2011.
100 miles on the bike.
Checking out the elevation map on the website gave me pause. It looks like the worst of it is in the middle of the race, and the last half is fairly easy. I will probably need to drive the race route before I can commit to it.
The most I’ve done is 55 miles. Reach the Beach this last spring was surprisingly easy for me. 55 miles was a good distance, the terrain was pretty flat and I was fast on the bike. But 100 miles? I’m not so sure I’d be as successful.
I am looking forward to training for some kind of cycling event with Michael, though.
I have to make a decision soon because I want to train on the bike trainer this winter. There’s a lot to think about, plan and discuss!
QUESTION: Have you ever biked a century?
Michael made sandwiches for dinner last night. Neither of us felt much like cooking and I wanted to participate in the Twitter #fitblog chat.
We had two leftover hoagie rolls. A little honey mustard, light mayo and topped with dry salami slices (4) and one slice of honey ham.
He added some chopped pepperoncinis (which I wasn’t quite sure about) which turned out pretty tasty.
I made us salads: green leaf lettuce, butter lettuce, baby spinach, chopped carrots, broccoli, Craisins and croutons.
Dinner was a nice comfort meal. What’s your favorite sandwich combo lately? I’m looking for good ideas!
#Fitblog was fun last night. I really liked the questions. If you missed it, here they are:
- I sleep much better in the winter time. My insomnia seems to cure itself! (thank god!)
- For me me, I prefer to workout on my own. I like to go at my own pace, do my own routine and it’s harder to coordinate workouts with someone else. When it comes to cycling or hiking though, I want a partner! It’s more fun that way.
- I would rather have more comments than page views, honestly. I feel like the healthy living blog world is about forming a community, forming friendships and my hope is that my blog inspires people to form friendships! Comments mean a dialogue and eventually a relationship.
- I have a lot of Fitness Goals. I’ve been lucky to be able to accomplish a few of them already. My other life goals are simpler: marry the love of my life, have a family, have a happy household full of babies, puppies and my cats. 😉 Oh and I want to travel EVERYWHERE!
QUESTION: What’s on your life Bucket List?
Becca
That’s one of the things I hate about being asleep when you are all doing your evening stuff – I had no idea what #fitblog was until someone started tweeting about how they didn’t like it!
Q1) We’re crate training our puppy (alternating who gets up at 2.30 each night), *and* I’m pregnant, so at the moment I’m suffering. I usually need about 8 hours, but now it’s more like ten!
Q2) Alone. I’m so much less fit than anyone I know, and I embarrass easily. I love brisk walking, especially when it’s nice and crisp out.
Q3) Comments! If I feel a connection to the blogger, I comment. I’d love for people to feel that way about my writing. Quality of comments is important, too – I wouldn’t want to be one of those former Weddingbee bloggers who gets 100 posts of “OMG! You’re the awesomest! I love you so much!!”, because what can you say to that? I like dialogue – to me, blogs are like message boards, but without the shockingly poor grammar and txt spk.
Q4) Getting out of the red. I’m so excited for a time when our money is ours, and not earmarked for a creditor. At the moment, that’s looking like 2013, so it’s nice to have an end in sight.
Lisa Eirene
Great answers! I’m with you…I want sincere comments that spark a conversation! I’m curious…why did your friend not like fitblog on Twitter? My guess is that it takes up a lot of the feeds on Tuesday nights…
Becca
It wasn’t anyone I knew, but one of the fitblog participants that I follow had retweeted, saying “let us know how we can make it better”. I think that was it – a lot of activity all in one go.
I think it’d be useful to be able to filter out hashtags – there’s a hideous show called X Factor that everyone tweets about on Saturdays and Sundays, and I’d love to be able to just block those tweets out!
Carbzilla
I couldn’t do 100 miles but I could definitely do the 25, 50 if I trained. Hmmm, very tempting.
Lisa Eirene
You and Chris should join us! Sign up for the 25 or 50 and we can all cross the finish line together.
For Reach the Beach, Michael did the 80 miles, I did 55. So I dropped him off in Portland, drove to my start point and met up with him and we did the rest together. It was great!
Sasha
Hi, I found your blog via another blog. I live about an hour north of Portland in Washington state. I like going into Portland for the food. If you haven’t tried Le Pigeon, you should, one of my favorites. I’ve lost 98 pounds over the last year although my starting weight was higher than yours so I still have more to lose before I hit goal. I’m an avid hiker, my favorite area being Mt. St. Helens and I’ve recently started running. My next goal is to get a bike which is why your post caught my eye. I would love to ride long distances. It’s next on my list of goals!
Lisa Eirene
Thanks for checking out my blog! Congratulations on the 98 pounds! 🙂
Lori (Finding Radiance)
Squeeeeeeeeee! A century ride! John and I did one this year on our own. The longest we had ridden before that was 75 miles, I think? I have to say the last 10 miles were tough, tough, tough. Not to mention that it took a long time.
The biggest problem that day? Getting in enough food. I know that sounds funny, but I struggled to eat enough calories and drink enough water. I would get full from the liquid and not be able to eat. Plus hills and full tummy = nausea.
Anyway, we might do another one next summer.
Lisa Eirene
Lori I had that problem with Reach the Beach too. I was NOT hungry but I forced myself to eat something at every rest stop because I was burning so many calories.
The Boyfriend
The elevation isn’t as scary as it looks on that graph. The first 25-ish miles are the spring water corridor and that doesn’t seem hard at all, right?
Lisa Eirene
NO but…that huge mountain in the middle is scary!
Lisa
That is some killer elevation!!!
Julie
The longest ride I’ve done was the Ride Around Clark County (the 65 mile option) and after doing it twice, I think I could probably pull off a century, but I’m not sure I like bike riding that much..
which is why triathlons are my thing…I like the variety.
I bet you would do great on a 100 mile ride!!
Merinda
I wrote out a list of 100 things before I die. I should go find it. I know among things on there is visit Merinda, Australia 🙂
Lisa Eirene
That seems like a given. I mean, if I was named after a town somewhere I’d HAVE to visit!