Monday, July 1, 2013

A death ride...

Thursday, June 27, 2013
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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