(no subject)
I broke one of my rules today on my ride. The rule is: ride your own ride, set you own pace and stick with it. Don't get suckered in to following the fast kids. Century rides are tricky, the pace is usually slower than quick 20 miles ride in the countryside. When I am out with friends on a 20-30 miles ride, I don't have to worry about drinking enough, or eating enough, because it is pretty easy to go the entire ride and not eat or drink anything even if I am going at a pretty fast pace.
On a century ride, its all different. Nutrition and hydration are different for everyone, but for me, I need like five or six energy gel packs, 4 or five waters bottles worth of sports drink and like 2 bananas. Bananas are key, they are high in potassium. Potassium prevents cramps. Cramps at a 20 mile an hour pace are no fun. On the whole ride, I never really feel hungry. If you wait till you are hungry it's too late, you are already out of gas, and even if you have food as soon as you feel hungry, it will still take quite a while for an effective amount of sugar to hit your blood stream. The other problem is sugary foods are best, they dissolve quick and deliver a truckload of sugar to the bloodstream in a hurry, except too much sweet food makes me nauseous. so I have to mix up the energy gel with the cookies and sandwiches and other food that isn't pure sugar. I try to eat as much as I can get away with without making myself nauseous. If I don't eat enough, I bonk.
Bonking is running out of metabolic gas. It is no fun. The first century ride I did, I didn't eat enough, and I was fine until mile 65-70. Until then I am sure I was setting a good 15-16 mile pace, which totally isn't fast but fine for the level I was at. But suddenly I totally ran out of gas. and my legs cramped up at the same time. So I went from 15-16mph, down to 5. I was suffering. It took me an hour to make it the 5 miles to the next rest stop and I was cramping the whole way. I ate all of the snacks and energy gel I had on me and I drained my water bottles. Eventually I ate enough and got my second wind, but my pace for the rest of the ride was only 10-12 miles an hour. So bonking is bad.
Today I did everything almost perfect. I drank nearly enough. I ate nearly enough. I kept to an aggressive but sane pace.
And then I got passed. By a pace line of about 10 bikers going about 22 miles an hour on the flats, which is fast, but not too fast for me. They were wheel to wheel in a close line, like they were teammates on a team time trial. There was no thought, I got up out of my saddle and chased them. I sprinted the 50 or 60 yards to the last biker and I got right on his wheel. It was all I could do to keep up. And it was glorious. Once I caught up it was relatively easy to stay caught up, by drafting the guys ahead of me. The pace line covered ground at a ferocious rate. As we passed people sometimes people would sprint catch up with us and join in the line and hang on as long as they could. Most of them could only keep up for a mile or two before they got spit out of the back red faced and wheezing. It was like catching an express train. The miles flew by and all I saw was the guy ahead of me's wheel. To properly draft, you want less than a foot of separation wheel to wheel, so riding in a pack like that takes more than a little focus. I could feel myself burning energy far faster than I could sustain, but it felt so good to be part of that line. Eventually on the south side of Columbus I couldn't sustain it and like all of the other wannabees I got spit out the back. I hung on for like 15 miles which is about 12 miles farther than I thought I could.
I pushed my pace for the remaining 10 or so miles back to Waterloo, but my average speed was back down to just over 18 miles an hour. When I finished I found my ride time for this Century ride was 5:40 at an average speed of 18.18 miles and hour. this was a personal best, I believe my previous best average speed was somewhere around 17 miles an hour. It was a great day. Next week is the Horribly Hilly Hundreds. Whee!
On a century ride, its all different. Nutrition and hydration are different for everyone, but for me, I need like five or six energy gel packs, 4 or five waters bottles worth of sports drink and like 2 bananas. Bananas are key, they are high in potassium. Potassium prevents cramps. Cramps at a 20 mile an hour pace are no fun. On the whole ride, I never really feel hungry. If you wait till you are hungry it's too late, you are already out of gas, and even if you have food as soon as you feel hungry, it will still take quite a while for an effective amount of sugar to hit your blood stream. The other problem is sugary foods are best, they dissolve quick and deliver a truckload of sugar to the bloodstream in a hurry, except too much sweet food makes me nauseous. so I have to mix up the energy gel with the cookies and sandwiches and other food that isn't pure sugar. I try to eat as much as I can get away with without making myself nauseous. If I don't eat enough, I bonk.
Bonking is running out of metabolic gas. It is no fun. The first century ride I did, I didn't eat enough, and I was fine until mile 65-70. Until then I am sure I was setting a good 15-16 mile pace, which totally isn't fast but fine for the level I was at. But suddenly I totally ran out of gas. and my legs cramped up at the same time. So I went from 15-16mph, down to 5. I was suffering. It took me an hour to make it the 5 miles to the next rest stop and I was cramping the whole way. I ate all of the snacks and energy gel I had on me and I drained my water bottles. Eventually I ate enough and got my second wind, but my pace for the rest of the ride was only 10-12 miles an hour. So bonking is bad.
Today I did everything almost perfect. I drank nearly enough. I ate nearly enough. I kept to an aggressive but sane pace.
And then I got passed. By a pace line of about 10 bikers going about 22 miles an hour on the flats, which is fast, but not too fast for me. They were wheel to wheel in a close line, like they were teammates on a team time trial. There was no thought, I got up out of my saddle and chased them. I sprinted the 50 or 60 yards to the last biker and I got right on his wheel. It was all I could do to keep up. And it was glorious. Once I caught up it was relatively easy to stay caught up, by drafting the guys ahead of me. The pace line covered ground at a ferocious rate. As we passed people sometimes people would sprint catch up with us and join in the line and hang on as long as they could. Most of them could only keep up for a mile or two before they got spit out of the back red faced and wheezing. It was like catching an express train. The miles flew by and all I saw was the guy ahead of me's wheel. To properly draft, you want less than a foot of separation wheel to wheel, so riding in a pack like that takes more than a little focus. I could feel myself burning energy far faster than I could sustain, but it felt so good to be part of that line. Eventually on the south side of Columbus I couldn't sustain it and like all of the other wannabees I got spit out the back. I hung on for like 15 miles which is about 12 miles farther than I thought I could.
I pushed my pace for the remaining 10 or so miles back to Waterloo, but my average speed was back down to just over 18 miles an hour. When I finished I found my ride time for this Century ride was 5:40 at an average speed of 18.18 miles and hour. this was a personal best, I believe my previous best average speed was somewhere around 17 miles an hour. It was a great day. Next week is the Horribly Hilly Hundreds. Whee!