Fifty Miles Down

On Saturday, my friend Michelle and I set out for a 50 mile bike ride.

We got lost about 10 miles in and ended up in historic downtown Ellicott City.  Yes, that Ellicott City that’s been in the news for horrific flooding that happened Saturday night.  It’s absolutely insane to watch the videos and the photos of the destruction are just horrific.  I’m amazed that more people weren’t killed.  And of course, insurance often doesn’t cover flooding like this.  It’s all just horrible. Thank goodness for all the good people who did their best to help others.  The video of the human chain pulling a woman from a car is amazing.  I also read a story where people were trapped in their home and escaped only because rescuers chopped through a wall in the neighboring building to get to them.

There’s no good way to transition this except to say that now I’m going to talk about my bike ride itself.  50 miles is the farthest I’ve ridden in a long time and it’s just going to get harder. I’m not going to lie, it was a tough ride, and I definitely hit a wall around mile 28, which isn’t good.  I’m not sure if it was mental or physical.  I never felt bad, but I definitely think I need to up my fluids.  I’m doing about 24 ounces of water an hour, but according to my coach, I should have to pee every 2 hours on the bike, and well, I didn’t.  We did stop for a bathroom and snack break around 2 hours, but it wasn’t as if I needed to stop.  So I’m definitely going to increase my fluid intake on the bike while also reducing the number of calories in my bottles.

Coach also suggested taking some sort of a special snack for when I hit that point, to make it a mental pick-me-up as well.  So I’m trying to figure out what that might be.  I ordered a few types of sour gummy candies and might pick up some Fig Newton style cookies and try those on my next long ride to see if they help.  Just something to get me over that hurdle.  I think I might need a sugar hit – when we stopped, I got water, a Coke, and some pretzels and that helped immensely.  The steady calorie intake just isn’t quite doing it.

Of course, this means I will have candy and cookies in my house and that’s dangerous.  I’m going to have to hide them away from myself so they don’t all get eaten during post-workout munchies.

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