Are You Kidding??!?!

I finally completed a 33-mile ride today.  I felt a great deal of accomplishment, but it wasn't all smiles.  A good part of the ride was absolutely agonizing, and most of it was avoidable.  Simply put, I made a lot of rookie mistakes.

In no particular order:

1. I didn't eat much the night before, and certainly didn't eat the carbohydrates I should have to get my muscles ready for the ride.

2. I had only a 210 calorie protein shake for breakfast before the ride.

3.  I only brought one bottle of water, even though I was likely going to be riding for over three hours.

4.  I took only a 120 calorie protein bar with me.

5. My bike was not quipped with any kind of bags or packs to carry needed items.

6.  I didn't check wind speed or wind direction before I set out.

Thanks to all the above "should have known better" moves, I rode the 16 miles out to Viva Naughton and was almost out of water when I got there.  I sat for a little while on the boat ramp and talked with a gentleman who was putting his boat in the water.  I rested for about 15-20 minutes, eating my protein bar as I looked out on the lake.  When I rose to head back to town, walking about a fourth of a mile up a hill to get back to the road, I was alarmed at how drained I already felt.

No matter, I thought, the ride in is always easy -- tail winds all the way and more coasting than climbing.  I got back on my bike and started pedaling, and it felt as though I had 500 pound weights in both my thighs (can you say lack of carbohydrate energy reserves?).  I noticed I wasn't gaining much speed going downhill, and the climbs seemed exponentially more arduous.  Eventually I started watching the long grass and shrubs and realized with a sinking feeling that the wind was coming from the south and I was heading back to town in a headwind or strong crosswind, depending on how the road was winding.

It was horrible.

At mile 25 I ran out of water.  Miles 26, 27 and 28 seemed to drag on for hours.  As I approached mile 29, walking my bike up the hill I no longer had the energy to climb on my bike, I broke down and called my assistant, Kathy.  "Can you bring me a bottle of water and any kind of sugar soda?"  Humiliating, but honestly, by then I didn't see myself finishing the ride without fluids and quick energy.  She met me around mile 30 with two bottles of water and a can of Coke.  As I guzzled both, it took pretty much every remaining ounce of self-discipline I had not to crawl into her car and beg her to drive me into town.

I finished the ride.  But it wasn't a very good experience. 

And THEN... (I know.. you are thinking, "There's MORE??")... I talked to my riding partner, Fred today.  Let me give you a little history.  Fred just turned 70 and is probably the most fit 70-yr-old I know.  He plays racquetball all over the world, and gets extremely restless and irritable if he goes more than a day or two without good physical activity.   He is a natural athlete, agile and strong.

HOWEVER... his "training" for this ride thus far has consisted of riding up to 10 miles on a stationary bike.  A STATIONARY bike.  Indoors.  In one place.  No ROAD, let alone hills and wind and mosquitos.  "You know, Jennifer, I think this stationary bike has done well by me." 

Uh huh.  Just wait, I thought, until you get out into the real world and ride.  Stationary bikes are for wussies.  I can't tell you how many times I thought to myself, the road riding is going to eat him for lunch.  I have lectured him repeatedly about how the ride is coming up, and he better GET A BIKE and get out on the road.

So yesterday, he rides 8 miles on a borrowed bike.  Ok, good start.  He sits in the Jacuzzi last night because "his sit bones hurt".  Today he tells me he is going to try 22 miles.  I feel smug, considering my own 33-mile agenda.  After our rides, we compare notes, and the first thing he tells me is that he "ran out of gas".  Well, fair enough.  A 22-mile ride is pretty ambitious for a guy who rode his first 8 miles of road in training just yesterday.

Yeah.  Turns out he felt so good on the borrowed bike that he rode 38 -THIRTY-EIGHT - miles before "running out of gas."

You have to be freakin' kidding me.  In what parallel universe is that justice?  Fairness? Equity?  I have been getting my booty on that bike seat for MONTHS, preparing, training, killing my butt bones.  And look who is already all caught up -- Mister The-Stationary-Bike-Has-Done-Well-By-Me.

If that kind of thing doesn't frost you and send some MAJOR sympathy my way, dear reader, then you are reading the wrong blog. 

Honestly.