John hits a wall...

Sunday, July 31, 2011

John has been consistently kicking my butt on our rides since he go his new, ultra lightweight bicycle a couple of months ago. As Lance would say though “it’s not about the bike” and it isn’t entirely. I’m riding as well as I have in years, but John has been training diligently and it’s paying off. Still…I’d like to kick his ass on a ride again.

We headed out in the heat of the afternoon for a long ride. My plan was to take the Waite Hill course and continue on to Auburn Road south and come back along Pekin. This could take 3 hours and included a lot of hills. I was feeling strong at the start, but purposely held back…trying to spin the legs and avoid the cramps I’ve been getting in my quads when I go out too hard. John has always been the hare…he goes hard early. We made our way to the monster hill on Kirtland/Chardon Road and he motored ahead. Towards the top of the 1.5 mile climb, I noticed I was reeling him in. We pulled into All Souls Cemetery to refresh our water bottles and short break. When the break ran to ten minutes, I suspected John wasn’t feeling well, though he didn’t say anything. We headed out, picking up Auburn south and making our way towards Pekin. On another long climb, I noticed he was dropping way back. Now…my first reaction was to bury him entirely…but I’m not that kind of guy so I slowed at the top and allowed him to catch up. “I’m bonking dude…is there anywhere we can get some Gatorade or something?” We were kind of in the middle of no-freaking-where and I said, “we’re kind of in the middle of no-freaking-where” when I remembered there was Speedway service station with a grocery at the intersection of Auburn and Rt. 87. “We’ll have to ride another mile out of the way and up some more hills…but for you, I’ll do it,” I said.

We rode slowly and were almost there when I asked John if he had any money. “Oh…shit…I think maybe…” he said. Once we stopped, he found a ten-dollar bill in his bag so we went inside and grabbed fruit drinks and a Cliff Bar. He drank two bottles and rested in the shade for 30 minutes before we began again…still 20 miles from home.

Bonking is unpleasant. It occurs when you’ve been doing some kind of aerobic exercise for an extended period of time…let’s say two hours of hard riding over a hilly terrain…and your blood sugar levels are running low. The energy you need to keep your leg muscles firing hard begins to wane and your performance suffers quickly. I’ve been there on more than one occasion and once it hits, there is little you can do except to slow down and try to replace the carbs. The ride home would be long and painful, but he’d get through…and he did.

We arrived back home after 3 hours of riding and headed for the pool. I made John a smoothie to complete his recovery and sent him home. I continued to burn calories though as I cleaned out my shed so that I could move things from the garage to make way for my new exercise station I was building there…more on that later. I continued to pour sweat as I worked and did so for the next two hours. In all, I probably dropped 10 pounds of water throughout the day and would have to be careful to replace it all before another bout in the unrelenting heat wave that has smothered the city.

Oh yeah…I had more of Holly’s dessert, too.

Bike workout: Three hours.
Training Heart Rate: 130 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 2,500.