My first Century!

It's been a really long time since I've hurt this much. Yesterday, the 14th of November 2008, I did my first century cycle. A group of 17 other cyclists and myself met in a parking lot on campus at 4:30am, threw our bikes in a huge coach bus, rode the bus 1.5+ hours straight North, got off at a random pier in the middle of nowhere, and started cycling South at 7am exactly. The entire country is only about 100 miles long, so naturally we didn't go straight South. It was more of a short cut Southwest, then a long cut Southeast to Al Khor, straight South from Al Khor into Doha, and then straight West from Doha back to Education City where our cars had been parked. A small group of the riders were the cyclists I usually ride with on the weekends. The rest was made up of very serious riders who go much faster on average than we usually do. So naturally I put my water and snacks in the middle-paced sag wagon. Clearly I don't know myself very well. Back down from a challenge? HA!! I was stubborn enough to keep up with the front group the whole time... and I paid dearly for it. Fortunately they were willing to feed me water and bananas and I had 4 packets of Gu, all of which I consumed over the 5 hours straight in the saddle. No stops. By the time I realized we weren't stopping and that the last 2 hours of this ride was really going to hurt, I couldn't slow down or drop off because I'd be cycling on my own with nobody to paceline. Oh, and we had a head wind the whole time, which is particularly why I wasn't to keen on going alone. By the time we got back to the parking lot, I couldn't feel my butt or my legs, and it was all I could do to sit on the ground b/c the lower half of my body was so tender. It felt better to stand up even though my legs were weak. I got home, made as much food as I could muster on my own, and sat on the couch the rest of the afternoon. Needless to say, I was asleep by 9pm.

Final statistics?...
160.09km (100.05 mi)
4:50.09
33.1km/hour average (20.7 mph)