Three Rides and a Bite to Eat

As I write this, the Death Ride is only 6 weeks away. Six weeks! I've been busy getting ready, have no fear. "Too busy to blog?" you ask? Well, maybe. It's a good excuse anyway, yeah, that's it...I've been too busy riding to blog, plus there was the dog that chased me, plus I saw a squirrel...

Whatever. What I’ll provide instead of more excuses are three brief updates; one for each of three significant rides I did since the last blog entry. Also, to make up for my tardiness I'll throw down some notes to answer the most common question I get asked "wtf do you eat all day?" Maybe I can even answer the second most common question at the same time!

On to the rides!

Ride One: "Hardest. Ride. Ever."   (May 12th, Page Mill/Tunitas, ~95miles, ~8k ft.)

Go Team Go!

I didn't expect a hard ride when this one started. A few weeks ago the Team ride was a loop on the Penninsula. We went out to the coast via Page Mill road, a climb which a couple of months before had taught me two things: 

• I can stay vertical on my bike at 3.5 mph
• Normally latent Tourette’s Syndrome can manifest itself under extreme duress. 

It was amazing to discover that this time the climb was significantly easier! I was actually really excited, because I was switching up the food I was eating during the ride, experimenting with new cycling "performance enhancers", and so far the ride had gone well.

 

Biggest Motorcycle Gang Ever.
We had to wait 10 minutes to cross their traffic.

The complication arose around the time I hit the 40-ish mile mark, near Pescadero. As we rolled to the coast and intersected a motorcycle convention that had drawn every gang member on two wheels within a six-county radius, the ride became much more challenging. I was at a loss to figure out why. We rode down the coast for about 10 miles in a paceline, the entire time I felt like I was climbing hard just to keep in the line! How could it be so easy for everyone else? I kept questioning myself – was it my new diet? Was it poor sleep the night before? Too much salt? Too little fluid? Had the singing motorcyclists stolen my vitality? Hard to say. All I knew was that this "easy" stretch of road really sucked. 

When we reached the next stopping point, I hopped off the bike and pushed it towards a fence…or tried to. The back wheel wouldn’t rotate. In fact, it had taco’d – bent itself into a taco shape – because a spoke had broken and it was rubbing the rear brakes on every rotation. Aha! That explained it. With my typical full head of stubbornness I had simply pushed through the difficulty, thinking it had to me, rather than something mechanical. 



Broken spoke meets electrical tape

Once again, my team helped me out. We were as far away from the start as we could’ve been and there was no support to call – but one person donated some tape, another helped me open the back brakes completely, and between the two it was rideable. Oy, but I was tired by that point. And the Tunitas Creek climb to get back over the hill and home still was ahead! There were those who suggested I just wait until somebody finished, then they could come and get me…nothing doing. I was going to push this one through.

Tunitas Creek was a climb I’d always wanted to try, the only major climb close to home that I hadn’t yet attempted. Three times before I'd bailed on it because of mechanical issues. I’ve now done it once, on a mangled wheel and sore legs. Between the tiredness and the wheel it was the hardest climb I’d ever done. I made it to the top, shedding tears of agony along the way. I was so glad to have my great teammates there to cheer me on! 

Ride Two: "And the Moon ate the Sun" (May 20th, Page Mill, et.al, ~60 miles, ~6.5k ft)

I didn't take this picture, but this was the eclipse!

On May 20^th I created my own little make-up ride, to try to compensate to some degree for missing the grueling team ride the day before up Sierra Road and Mt. Hamilton. More excuses - Family in town, the Maker’s Faire was happening, blah blah - bottom line, I skipped the Team ride. So to try to make up even a franction of the punishment in the time I had, I rushed out for a quick run up and down the hills, once again tackling Page Mill, then Old La Honda. Finally, I figured to cap it all off by climbing the CrestView wall on my way home. This is a local hill near my house and the only place I’ve ever broken 50mph. Point downwards, of course. Climbing up it’s a ridiculous, vertical ascent, mitigated only by the fact that it’s short-ish. For those familiar with an east-bay climb known as “South Park” I’ll simply say that I’d rather have “South Park” than CrestView any day of the week.

Testing my climbing ability by going up Crestview had seemed like a good idea at the time. Of course, partway up I had to stop and rest. Then I had to stop again. And again. Each time, the same tired chat with my old friend "Max Heart Rate" and his ever sociable date, "Dry Heaves". When I finally lurched to the top just after 6pm, completely spent, my legs decided it would be a good time to let me know they were going on strike by completely cramping up. It was all I could do not to fall over and cry on the spot. Fortunately there was a small crowd watching my arrival and some residual sense of decorum kept me biting my lower lip and grimacing instead of screaming.

Much to my surprise, I’d arrived just in time to watch the solar eclipse from the top of the ridge. All the amateur astronomers were overjoyed to have a hobbling cyclist admire their telescopes and lenses. Thanks to my timing (and no doubt my bedraggled state) I garnered enough sympathy to peer through some nice equipment and watch the moon very nearly eclipse the whole Sun. It was a great show! By the time it was over my legs worked well enough to get me home. I couldn’t have timed the day any better!

Ride Three: "South Park Meets Devil Mountain" (May 26th, Mt. Diablo, et.al., ~100 miles, ~10.5k ft)

It's Bone Domo! Our Team Spirit Award!
I Love You, Domo!

And this brings us up to ride three of the set, made last Saturday, the 26^th  of May. For those keeping track, this one was another near-miss on the Century list, clocking in at 99 miles. Sigh.

However, there was one immediately wonderful thing about this entire ride - I got to carry Domo on my bike! Domo is the Team Spirit Award, and every week one rider who best demonstrates the indominatable spirit required of Death Riders everywhere gets to take this totem on their bike. It was my turn, due to the events described in the first Ride on this blog - in which I pushed through to completion despite a bent wheel and hard times!

Pushing Max HR, at the very summit of Mt. Diablo!

Domo is a huge pick-me-up. He really kept me going. All through the hard parts of this ride I found myself talking to him, gaining his encouragement, telling him in turn to "Scream Louder" as the wind ripped across my ears on death-defying descents...good times, good times!

The ride of the day was a big East Bay tour, covering some well-known territory, including another summit of Mt. Diablo and transecting the Vampiric-Butterfly infested fields of the Grizzly Peak Century. Not so long ago such a ride should have struck fear into my bones!

Summiting the Pig Farm

Yet Mt. Diablo, with the hellish grade at the top, held no fear. I made it up that ghoulish last pitch without pause, Domo screaming his encouragement the whole way! 

There then followed the meandering hills of the three bears, with nary a blood-sucking butterfly to worry me. Finally, the day gone, sun setting and 90+ miles reached, we tackled the final climb: "South Park Lane". That's one nasty climb, short and brutal. Especially in the cold and dark, at the end of a long day of riding. To be fair, I had to pause twice to make it to the top, but once again, my teammates never left me behind. Love it!

My DR Roomie!

So somehow…though everything was difficult, it was all achievable. I think the hardest part was that it took all day! We were on the bikes at 8am, only making it back to the cars around 7pm. That's been hard to adapt to - as these rides grow longer and the climbing more intense, I simply have to be prepared for entire days spent in the Sun, pushing my pedals.

And yet...week by week, my body becomes ever more hardened, carved in wood. The seat still tries to destroy my butt, but it takes longer every time. This type of riding isn't easy, it’s never been easy. As the wise man said, “It never gets easier. You just get faster.” I would add to that - you get tougher. A lot tougher. Six more weeks! Will I be tough enough?!? OMG O_o

Ride Nutrition: "Do you eat while you ride?"

So I thought I'd throw in some quick thoughts on things not really nutrition related. Basically I get asked a lot, “Do you eat while you ride?” The answer is an emphatic “yes!”

There are some really fun challenges in doing endurance events like this. Not just the physical challenges, either. The body is a machine, and it has been fascinating for me to discover how that machine can be run. There are a couple of critical things that need to be watched during these events. The first one is heart rate (HR). How fast your heart is beating while you exercise is telling you how hard you’re working. How hard you’re working dictates what type of energy you’re burning, whether it’s energy from the muscles (anaerobic) or from fat (aerobic). There’s only so much anaerobic energy available. It has to be conserved and portioned out at critical intervals to climb hills or sprint ahead. The rest of the time you have to be smart, watch the HR, and insure you’re burning easily renewable energy. That’s where eating while you ride really comes into play.


About a Century's worth of calories and supplements.
Okay, I only eat a fraction of the big powder
bins in one go, but you get the idea.

Check out the photo with the various food-stuffs in it. That’s typical ride-prep for me. There are supplements to restore electrolytes and maintain glycogen levels. There’s a pre-ride FRS drink and a post-ride FRS drink. There are bottles of gel, which is like a sugary syrup, for times when a rapid hit of energy is required. There are the longer-burning elements, like peanut butter sandwiches, fig newtons, energy bars and the like. And of course, the real secret? Painkillers. My personal choice is Aleve. I’m amazed at what a difference those little pills can make over the long haul!

All told, I’ll end up carrying somewhere between 2,000-3,000 calories with me. In many ways, long-distance endurance cycling is a numbers game. When operating in aerobic zones, the body uses glycogen as a catalyst for all its energy conversion. You can’t burn fat if you don’t have glycogen, and if you’re not burning fat you’re burning the energy in the muscles directly, which is a quick path to bonking out and ending the ride.

The way we ride, with all the climbing, 30 miles is a bit less than three hours of effort, and something like 1500 calories. That’s about all the body is really good for in terms of glycogen reserves. If you want to maintain performance levels after that, you have to be eating along the way.


A demonstration of my patented quick-activation technique
to maximize the efficacy of cycling "performance enhancers".
Don't try this at home. I'm what you call "a professional".

Our Team rides have been getting up to 10+ hours in duration. The Death Ride itself might take 15 hours. At a minimum, I have to be taking in about 300 calories an hour to keep the engine running, perhaps more. So on a 10-hour ride, I try to pack about 3,000 calories and eat it all. That 3,000 plus the initial 1,500 in reserve gives me approximately a nine-hour range at good performance levels. Simple math, right? Hopefully now you have some insight into why so many bikers go around with big lumps of junk on their backs. We’re like camels on wheels, eating our own humps as we go!


A Final Word

Thanks for reading this far and thanks to all of you for your friendship and support! For those unaware, I've hit my fundraising milestone. You've been a huge inspiration to me and one of the biggest reasons I keep on going. To all of you who've helped me and by extension helped in the fight against cancer, I extend my heartfelt love and gratitude!

Of course, as I write this, it's time to face the next challenge. Tomorrow is the biggest ride yet for the season. I'm told it's 110 miles and 11k of vertical feet, and I have to drive about 2.5 hours just to get to the start line. I have to leave the house before Starbucks opens, for crying out loud! Does the world even exist at that hour?!? Stay tuned...if I make it back, you'll hear all about it here!