Painful cramps...

Friday, October 7, 2011

You’d think if you got painful leg cramps while riding that kept you from completing your rides and had figured out why those cramps were happening…you’d be able to remember not to do it again. Well…Holly would say “not if you’re a man” and she’d probably be right. I’d been having cramping experiences during the early riding season and had concluded that they only came when I put long rides back-to-back when I really didn’t have the conditioning. As my training mileage increased, the cramps went away and I haven’t been visited by them since. Until today.

I’d ridden hard the day before, going almost two hours after doing the Survival Workout. I really haven’t ridden much over the previous four weeks due to rain and hiking in the Adirondacks. So maybe my ‘man’ brain should have signaled me that if I went out again today, I’d likely get into trouble around the hour mark. It didn’t.

I took a slightly different route and found myself climbing a particularly steep hill on Booth Road just below the Holden Arboretum. I was climbing without issue, but placing plenty of torque on the pedals to make the ascent. When I crested the hill, I felt the first twinge and prayed it would be the last. Well…it wasn’t. I continued on but found quickly that I needed to reduce gears if I was going to stay on the bike. Both quadriceps were going through spasms that were both painful and debilitating…my legs tend to not want to go around when I’m going through it. It’s rather unpleasant…and again you’d think I would have remembered. I guess it’s like blocking out delivery pains. Anyway, I simply slowed down and used easier gears for the second half of the ride and made it home without undue discomfort.

Jack and I were scheduled to have dinner with his grandparents and so he was surprised to see me making a large smoothie as we were getting ready to leave. “Won’t that ruin your appetite, dad?” Well actually…almost nothing ‘ruins’ my appetite, but it will take the edge off. “Grandpa is going to make something entirely ‘un-Paleo’ and it’s going to taste great, Jack. If I don’t drink this, I’m going to eat a ton of something really, really bad,” I said. He thinks I’m weird and this explanation makes little sense to him, but I’m sticking with it. And like I expected, his grandpa had made dumplings in a heavy gravy sauce…which I love…but because of the smoothie, managed to keep myself to one helping. He had cherry turnovers for dessert, which I was also able to pass on…and he ate to keep me from feeling bad. Thank God for smoothies.

Bike workout: Two hours and 5 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 130 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 1,600.