Cinderella Century 2008

Wow!  What a day.

Costume-wise, it was fantastic – every other person who passed me (literally!) said, “Ooh!  Nice outfit!” and about every tenth person said, “Wow!  You win the prize for best costume!”  Eight or nine people came up to me and said, “Are you Tien?  We’ve never met, but I saw the outfit and knew it just had to be you!”  And lots of people asked for photos (including, amusingly enough, a pair of women selling some sort of energy drink – they wanted me to pose with a photo of the can in my hand.  I wonder if that qualifies as my first product endorsement?).  For an attention junkie, it was quite gratifying.  I work hard at my outfits and am glad this one was appreciated.  🙂

Cycling-wise, though, it was a real challenge.  I started strong, but was feeling progressively weaker through the day.  At mile 40 I was starting to have some muscle pain in my right shin, so I took a slightly longer than usual break at the rest stop and rode in to the finish fairly slowly – averaging about 14 mph on the flats (which is very, very slow – even for me).  My total time was just over five hours for 65 miles, for an average of under 13 mph.  That’s discouragingly slow, especially over a flat course.

On the other hand, it’s early in the season, so there’s still time to catch up.  I’m just realizing that it’s going to be a higher mountain to climb than I expected.

Tomorrow, another 30-35 miles.