Just got back from Salisbury after doing the Seagull Century!

All I can say is hats off to Salisbury University for putting on such a well-supported event.

6,000 or so riders participated. It was awesome riding in that mass.

The hotel was crappy and the continental breakfast even crappier, but it was close to the start.

My friend Larry, who just turned to cycling after a running injury, and I had planned to ride it at 17mph and rode those ever increasing weekend training rides on the hilliest, rolling courses I could come up with and it paid off.

We got separated for 60 miles after Mile 15. But he presevered. Unfortunately, he passed the Team Demoncats Support Vehicle (Kim, Griffin and Mishima, the Akita) at Mile 50.

I had stopped at Mile 22 at the first Rest Stop and ate a banana and an orange and waited a bit to see if I could find Larry.

Then at Mile 42 Rest Stop, I had to use the Porta-Johns and fill up my bottles. The next eight miles were a misery of headwinds! Oh Lord!

At Mile 50, I stopped for a few minutes at the Support Vehicle and scarfed down two Prosciutto and Cheddar panini and a Red Bull.

At the next Rest Stop (Assateague Island), I simply rode up and carried on, being sufficiently fueled up and planning on meeting up with Kim again at Mile 80.

Around Mile 70 I came upon Larry, who was suffering a bit, but we got to the Support Vehicle. Some club soda and Ding Dongs hit the spot. Larry is encouraged to hear that the Mile 82 Rest Stop (The Pie Stop) was nearing. He had some, while I refrained, and we chilled a bit under the shade.

As we rode off for the final 18 miles, he fell off the pace, and I latched on to the tail end of a pace group and trudge on alone.

The beautiful thing about the Seagull is that is super flat flat flat and somehow manages to include quite a bit of downward inclines, allowing to draft with groups riding along at 20-21mph for some good distances. When rested up a bit, it was easy to accelarate away from the group to hop-scotch from paceline to paceline.

At the end, back at the University, I rode in and the support crew was there! YAY!!!

Off to the beer garden that had awesome three dollar beers! 16oz of Yuengling never tasted so good!!! The burger was a bit burnt, but it went down quick.

Still hungry, we got to stop at Dairy Queen on the trip back! Sooooooo good!

Oh yeah, total time for the century was a tad under six-hours, rest stops included.

My riding time, though, was 5h14m for an average of 19.2mph. Sweet!!!

I swear, next year, I'm losing some weight, cross-train a bit more and nailing it in under 5 hours!!!

Now I need to go get some beer!!!