I woke Thursday morning with some extreme soreness in my legs. One hour of running when you’ve only been doing 30 minutes once a week tends to lead to that. I shuffled around throughout the day knowing that my bike ride would likely loosen me up. I needed to ride out to see Dan and had planned on taking the long route to make it a 45-mile trip.
As
I began the ride, things seemed reasonably normal. I wasn’t five miles into the ride though when
I began to notice I was riding a couple of miles per hour slower than
normal…and struggling with the effort.
‘This is not good,’ I thought, but kept spinning.
The
route I’d chosen took me up Old Mill Road and out Pekin to Chardon which is
another way of saying ‘hilly’. An hour
into the ride had me wondering if I’d have the energy for the ride back. Clearly I was suffering from the dehydration
and exertion of yesterday’s run and with the humidity still high, I was
continuing to drop fluids rapidly. I’d
packed Gatorade in one of my bottles in a new effort to drink fluids with the
replacement electrolytes that were falling from my body all over my bike and on
the road. I’d nearly finished the bottle
as I pulled into Dan’s drive, knowing I still had an hour of riding to return
home.
“Throw
the bike in the truck and I’ll drive you back,” Dan offered.
“I
can’t wuss out, Dan. I’ve got to be able
to ride 1200 miles in less than two months, so I should be able to handle a
3-hour ride now,” I said.
I
refilled my water bottle and pedaled down his drive and back out onto the
road. A little over an hour later, I was
coasting into my driveway, proud that I’d worked through the exhaustion to
complete such a long ride. It wasn’t the
best idea I’d ever had, but I proved to myself once again that if I just kept
going, I can pretty much do anything.
Bike duration: Two hours and 45 minutes.
Training Heart
Rate: 120 bpm.Calories burned during workout: 2400.
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