And for post-back-to-back-century-chafing blues (no really... I had NO idea), I heartily recommend Bag Balm.
Available at Lee Valley, conveniently located near the Mountain Equipment Co-op in Toronto.
Today's training ride went from Kipling Station to Campbellville and back. Got a little lost along the way, so inadvertently got a few extra kilometers in. This is an excellent route for anyone looking to do some hills. I wasn't really interested in working on my hill technique at all, but I'm not in charge of everything. Yet. Beautiful day, challenging ride. When I got back to Kipling Station, I was completely wiped, and low on fluids. My odometer read 138 km. With the 11 kms to home, it would be 149 kms. Almost 160. I tried to care, I really did. I started to head home anyway, heading east along Bloor. When I got to the place where I turn south to go home, though, something happened and I kept riding east. In for a penny, in for a pound. Bloor had way more hills than I remembered, and I ran out of fluids altogether around Bloor and Church. Headed south on Church, hoping that it would be enough. The last five kilometers to my house are probably the worst I've ever ridden, and I think I'm more proud of them right now than any other. The odometer when I reached the house? 160.2 km. Good thing too, because I'm really not at all sure what I would have done if it had been 159.9. Cried maybe.
So there it is, back to back imperial centuries. For anyone thinking that's not a big deal, all I can say is that before I started training for the Rally, the most (by a lot) I had ever ridden in a day was 100 km. Even with the training rides, that high had only bumped to 130 for a single day. So doing 175 km yesterday (I went to a housewarming party after the ride yesterday) and 160 so far today is a pretty big deal for me, and felt plenty hard to me!
The training ride for the Friends for Life Bike Rally today was from Kennedy Station to Uxbridge and back. 117 km for the training ride, plus riding to Dufferin Station in the morning and back home from Kennedy Station and I was at 146 km on the odometer when I got home, which made it the most km I'd ever ridden in a day. So I did what any mildly OCD person would do. I kept riding.
Now, riding past my house, where there was beer in the fridge, was probably one of the most difficult things I've done. My nether regions were afire, my right knee had been complaining bitterly for the last 40 km, and I was out of water. But I was only 14 km shy of an imperial century, 100 miles. So all I had to do was keep going until the odometer read 153, then turn around and come home. Getting to 153 took forever, because I was checking the odometer every 3 seconds. Getting home was pretty quick, though, and my odometer now reads 160.48 km. So a century by a hair, but still a century.
