Monday, February 16, 2009

Bonkers!

From Wikipedia...
"In endurance sports, particularly cycling and running, hitting the wall or the bonk describes the condition when an athlete suddenly loses energy and becomes fatigued, the result of glycogen stores in the liver and muscles becoming depleted."

So for the final day of my rest week, I ventured out w/ a large group of Cat I/II's for what turned out to be ~60miles. At one point the dude calling the ride had proposed ~80miles, which sounded bad to me as 1) I had not mentally prepared for 80 miles and 2)I didn't bring enough food things for 80miles. A road was washed out making that trek impassable, so it was brought back to reality via roads I know and a more manageable route (paragon-MMSF-down Bean Blossom-north shore-45-south shore-robinson-in).
I rode really well throughout, mixing it up and doing my time on the front, but @ 2hrs27min (about halfway across Robinson rd), I "hit the wall;" hard. A mixture of cold, hard early season riding and a totally inadequate previous night's dinner contributed, but it was probably the worst I've ever bonked. I was having thoughts of not making it home around Fire Station Hill, which is ~5miles from home. I've had only one "I Don't Know If I'll Make It Home" bonk before (that I can remember) and it was many years ago.
I did make it home. I drank my recovery drink, put on my Skins wear, ate a two egg sammy (doubling my typical egg/bread ratio) and laid around most the rest of the day.
Luckily the Tour of California was on Vs., so had something interesting to stare at. Not so luckily, the weather in CA was so bad they couldn't bring a live feed from the course, so it was no action shots of the finish line about an hour before the race actually got there and people talking about Lance Armstrong for a hour. Whatever, it beats True Life and made on MTV! (and they did finally get video feed for the last hour or so)
Today I rode outside for ~45min. This is my first outside Monday recovery ride of the year! I normally wouldn't drink recovery after a ride like today's, but I could feel that I am not fully recovered from yesterday, so I did. I think the weather is supposed to degrade throughout the week, but at least I'm getting out with semi regularity!

1 comment:

Dave Rodkey said...

Oh yeah, I feel the pain. I wasn't sure I'd make it home from my 8.2 mile run last Thursday. But I found out it was the shoes. I put on the new shoes I bought 2 months ago and on Sunday I took 9 mins 17 secs off on Thursday time. Over 9 minutes !!!