100 Miles in 100 Degrees

Last weekend Corinne, Catherine, Michelle and I drove to Boise, ID to participate in the Goldilocks Ride (terrible name, so we were calling it the G-Cent) women's only century.  It was fun, flat, and fast (sort of...), and hot!

Being a women's only event, it had a good mix of tough (riding 100 miles) and girly (necklaces, pink porta-potties, pictures of Ryan Gosling out on the course, etc).  One thing I noticed about having no guys there was how clean the porta-potties were!  There were the odd male out on the course, volunteering (patronizingly called "papa bears" - most things about the event I really liked, but not that).  Sure enough, we were making fun of the need for the papa bears, until of course we needed one!  Corinne's tire blew (literally - it made a gun-shot sound and scared the crap out of us) and needed to be replaced, and a nice papa bear brought a spare tire he had in his garage and gave it to her.  While we spent over 45 minutes at an aid station waiting, it was worth it as she got to continue with us.

Corinne's tire - not even a boot could help that!
Pretty thankful to the guy who brought us
a tire so we could continue on together.

We were riding near the front before the tire mishap, but still rode a good pace for most of the rest of the ride.  The heat definitely affected some more than others.  The course was flat and fast, but we chose to ride together so didn't always take advantage of how fast it could be.   Worth it though to finish as a team - we were the only 4 people from Canada in the event (out of about 500) and got a lot of cheers as "the Canadians".

The Canadian train.

The weather was off the charts in terms of record heat, and according to my Garmin topped out at over 42 degrees Celcius (107 degrees F).  Yikes!  However, the heat didn't bother me at all.  The wind (oh how I love Boise winds) didn't pick up until after 9, so we got a lot of miles in before we had to deal with head- and cross-winds.  Here's what I did to stay on top of my nutrition and body temperature for a long ride in the heat.

Time doesn't include rest stops...
we spent a long time at mile 45 waiting for a tire!

I started the morning (it was an early start - 6 a.m. so really early dark-thirty wakeup) with a light breakfast of a banana and an Erin Baker's Breakfast Cookie.  I drank a cold bottle of Vega Pre-Workout Energizer on the way to the start, and ate a package of Clif Blocks right before we started the ride.  I had two bottles on my bike (kept in the fridge overnight so they were nice and cold) with Vega Pre-Workout Energizer and two scoops of CarboPro in each (so around 300 calories).  Because it was so hot and dry (for this coastal girl anyway), I was drinking about one bottle per hour.  I had in my pockets two baggies, each with two scoops of CarboPro and a Nuun tablet (electrolytes).  Once I finished that, I switched to Gatorade which is what they had on course.

In terms of solid food, I didn't have much as I do well with liquid calories.  I did have a handful of swedish fish and pretzels at each of the 7 aid stations, and a Honey Stinger waffle at mile 60.  Also at mile 60 Corinne located us each a can of Coke.

Most of the aid stations had ice, so I'd fill my bottles with ice to keep my drinks cold for as long as possible.  I'd also dump handfuls of ice in my bra, which cools the blood in my heart and then cool blood is delivered around the body.  I highly recommend this technique anytime you're racing in the heat.  It's also handy to grab an ice cube from while riding if you want to snack on one. :)

Pouring cold water on the back of your neck helps too.  Don't pour it under your helmet, as it needs to evaporate to get the cooling benefit.  We also all reapplied sunscreen at each aid station, and despite a long day with no shade, there were no sunburns!

At the finish.
We got tonnes of compliments on our kits all day!

Corinne, Catherine and I are water babies so once our ride was done and we were back at our hotel, the three of us decided to rent tubes and raft down the river.  Perfect way to end the day!