This Sunday, I headed out to the bike shop for the weekly ride. With a forecasted temperature of 54 degrees and sunny skies, it was a great day to ride. Since I'd missed the ride last week, I was excited to get going.
Back in October/November, I rode a few times with this crew. The group mostly consists of roadies from Route 1 Velo. They are a great bunch of folks - really nice and it's a no-drop ride. I always feel bad for being at the back of the pack, but you've gotta start somewhere. In the fall, I went on the rides around the time that I was finishing up Foundations at CF. I'd ride on Sunday, do CF during the week and then ride again the next Sunday. On weeks where there was a lot of heavy listing I actually improved a bit from week-to-week: Deadlifts work!
THE GOOD
The ride has a few hills and some rollers and covers about 30 miles. Typically, I get dropped going up the first big hill. Chris, one of the shop owners, is usually the guy who hangs back with me and lets me draft to recover. In rides past, we've been too far back and I've been too slow to bridge to the group so we end up losing them fairly early on. However, this week we were only 30m or so back at the top of the hill. I was huffing pretty badly, but was able to turn the wheels enough to stay on Chris' wheel and get pulled back to the group. This was a first! A little later I fell off the pace again, but we managed to bridge again. All in all, we managed to stay with the group until the turn at 197 - 14 miles. This was HUGE! I was very psyched to have stayed with them that long. Especially at 19+ mph in places.
THE BAD
After 197, I started to fade. Suddenly, I couldn't seem to even maintain 12mph. I mean I'm slow but I'm not usually that slow. Then it dawned on me - in my haste to get out the door and because I'm running low on groceries, I didn't eat as much as I normally do. I'd planned to eat a Zone Perfect bar, but couldn't find one. So I had a small piece of sweet potato before heading out. Stupid, I know. So I was pedalling with little gas in the tank.
THE UGLY
Little gas turned into fumes. Next thing I know, it happened. Yep, a full on BONK! I have never, ever felt so bad on a bike. Like seriously! My legs didn't feel tired, but they just couldn't turn any faster. I apologized to Chris about 100x and then when he pawned me off on Ed I apologized some more. At times, I couldn't pedal over 6mph on the flats. My only goal was to get back to the shop and my car where I'd brought my lunch. We made our way through the USDA reserve in Beltsville and up ahead the rest of the group was waiting. I felt horrible for having made all of them wait for me. We crossed 193 and snaked our way through the neighborhoods to get to the shop. The neighborhood hills were the nail in the coffin. At one point, I was going so slow up one of them that I got of the bike and walked it up. walk of shame When we got back to the shop, I went directly to my car and ate. I literally could feel the nutrients coursing through my veins.
Lessons Learned
1. Always, always take nutrition on a ride even if you don't normally eat it
2. I need to fuel up properly before long, endurance events and workouts. Failing to eat properly is just stupid.
I'm glad that the ride was good in the beginning - I've improved via CF. Next week, I'll eat more and see how the back half of the ride goes.
No comments:
Post a Comment