40 miles and counting...
Apr. 26th, 2010 07:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gayathriNext week is the Tour De Cure for the ADA in Napa. I'm signed up to do 50 miles. I'm _excited_ about this - so this weekend, we drove up there to try and do about 40 miles along the route - which is by far the longest ride I've ever done. I've been not as consistent as I'd like about training, but feel confident that now that the bicycle fits, the shoes clip out and in easily, that this will be hard but not insane.
40 was hard - I did have some leg / thigh muscles cramp up due to lack of potassium - but plenty of electrolytes and stretching during the stops I made it to about mile 35, where I really just thought I might curl up and die - I was _tired_ - but I remembered this episode of Radio Lab that Byronium had played for me about how our bodies basically fool us into not using our 'last reserves' or that we often have much more endurance than we think we do. (http://blogs.wnyc.org/radiolab/2010/04/05/limits/ ;) *edited to add* So I pushed on, and had my very first endorphin high while exercising - suddenly, I felt great! My pedaling was stronger, and more consistent, and I felt like I could go on forever. So I didnt stop until I got to the end and then drank more cytomax than I thought possible. :-) It was a really neat experience!
One great accident on this ride was putting my foot down, slipping and FALLING INTO THE ROAD. You know, the one called Silverado where cars whiz by! I manage to get up and in my excitement, flung my glove someplace. So I rode back all Michael Jackson style.
The best part was coming into the finish, seeing llamaeyes, byronium and anthropomorphic cheer for me. :) I did pretty good!
Today, my legs are sore from where the muscles cramped and the bottoms of my feet hurt (I think from the shoes) but mostly I remember passing orange roses, lots of poppies, and miles of vineyards...
This week, tuesday, another short ride, and thursday too. Stretching all this week, and drinking lots of cytomax and smartwater.
:)
Blood sugars are awesome! weight keeps melting off, things keep moving in the right direction.
One more week to help me: http://main.diabetes.org/goto/gayathri
40 was hard - I did have some leg / thigh muscles cramp up due to lack of potassium - but plenty of electrolytes and stretching during the stops I made it to about mile 35, where I really just thought I might curl up and die - I was _tired_ - but I remembered this episode of Radio Lab that Byronium had played for me about how our bodies basically fool us into not using our 'last reserves' or that we often have much more endurance than we think we do. (http://blogs.wnyc.org/radiolab/2010/04/05/limits/ ;) *edited to add* So I pushed on, and had my very first endorphin high while exercising - suddenly, I felt great! My pedaling was stronger, and more consistent, and I felt like I could go on forever. So I didnt stop until I got to the end and then drank more cytomax than I thought possible. :-) It was a really neat experience!
One great accident on this ride was putting my foot down, slipping and FALLING INTO THE ROAD. You know, the one called Silverado where cars whiz by! I manage to get up and in my excitement, flung my glove someplace. So I rode back all Michael Jackson style.
The best part was coming into the finish, seeing llamaeyes, byronium and anthropomorphic cheer for me. :) I did pretty good!
Today, my legs are sore from where the muscles cramped and the bottoms of my feet hurt (I think from the shoes) but mostly I remember passing orange roses, lots of poppies, and miles of vineyards...
This week, tuesday, another short ride, and thursday too. Stretching all this week, and drinking lots of cytomax and smartwater.
:)
Blood sugars are awesome! weight keeps melting off, things keep moving in the right direction.
One more week to help me: http://main.diabetes.org/goto/gayathri
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no subject
Date: 2010-04-26 02:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-30 04:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-27 04:55 am (UTC)Cramps be a real ride killer. I can't stand the taste of most sport drinks and I finally found Nuun tablets ( http://www.nuun.com/ )work the best for me - giving me the stuff I need without the sugar yet still having a decent taste. You drop them in the water and it kind of bubbles up for a minute, mixing itself, yet no carbonation. It has been a saving grace for long workouts. I have seen them sold at some REIs and cycle stores.
I'm really proud of you for doing this ride! *curly tail wag
Respectfully,
~ Pug
no subject
Date: 2010-04-27 03:31 pm (UTC)Something different DOES happen around 2 hours of steady exercise. I can't wait to keep exploring!
no subject
Date: 2010-04-30 04:54 pm (UTC)For anything longer than about an hour I'll take a sports drink like Gatorade and/or GU Gels with me. For a typical 2 hour/13 mile training run, I'll go through 100 calories of Gatorade and 100 calories of the GU.
Although going low is an obvious issue, there's also a less obvious problem- it's easy to go high during a very long event. The issue is that if you're not producing enough insulin you can end up with blood sugar that won't go to the muscles because the muscles aren't getting their insulin signal. This happened to me during the last 6 miles of my marathon back in December- my blood sugar was way above normal just after the race even though my muscles felt very weak.