03.31.12 The first brevet is done!

Ok, so for y'all out there who don't speak French and are wondering what a brevet is, it's just a different type of bike ride.  Generally it's characterized by longer distances usually 200 kilometers, (or 125 miles) or more, and sometimes a lot more!  You have a time limit to complete the ride and you have to check in at control points along the way to verify you completed the course.

When Vicky first started talking of joining the Lone Star Randonneurs and riding brevets and such, it sounded like a really fun group of people and a fun new type of ride.  I'd no idea at the time just what I was getting myself into.

Imagine a group of people whose idea of a really good time is 20+ hours on a bicycle saddle for 250 or more miles, and I thought I was crazy, I'd not seen crazy till Saturday.  I'd also not met a much nicer group of people either.  Here I was, well out of my pay grade getting together to start a ride with folks who were riding 350-400 miles or more a week.  There was a huge amount of experience and information regarding long distance riding contained in that group.  And what was great for me, they were more than willing to share that information and help me out.

The group at the start...

The ride was the Fleas and Trees brevet out of Canton Texas.  The ride is named for the Third Monday Trade Days flea market held in Canton and the huge number of trees along the route.  About 6-7 of us chose to do the 200 kilometer route with the rest opting for the 400 kilometer ride and a trip to Louisiana.  

One the road to Gilmer.

 

A really nice shade tree to pump up a tire under!

 

The route itself was fantastic, it was classic east Texas with wonderful springtime weather.  Myself and another rider did hear a rumble or two of thunder but no rain developed for us fortunately.  I discovered that east Texas is not at all like around were my family and I live.  East Texas has hills!  Some of them even are pretty nice sized hills at that.  I remember looking up at an upcoming climb at one point and thinking how much that was going to hurt going up.  As I was starting down  a rather large hill I decided if I was going to hurt climbing up the next hill, I may as well enjoy the trip down.  Time to jam onto my big ring and see just how fast I can make my bike go, (I managed to break 41 mph, I guess next time I need a bigger hill as I want to break my best on a bike of 55 mph).

As this ride was a couple of firsts for me it was a huge learning experience.  This was not only my first brevet I'd ever tried, but it proved to be the longest ride I'd ever done.  It was also the second century ride I'd done since getting back on the bike and into shape.

The lessons and take aways from this ride:

·         Meeting and making new friends on the road.  This was a huge plus for me and a huge thank you to Michele for talking me through the ride,  and to the guys from Trinity Bicycles for finding what was causing my flat tire issues.  You all were great!

·         When there is a flat tire, take the time to hunt down the root cause of the problem and fix it right the first time.  Having flat tire issues from mile 25 to mile 109 was a bit of a problem. 

The I hate my tire face..

 

·         Don't let issues take you off your nutrition / hydration plan.  I let my flat tire issue get me off the nutrition  and hydration plan and paid for it on the return trip to Mineola.  I ate at the turn around in Gilmer, (mile 62) and didn't eat again till Mineola, (mile 99).  As a diabetic, that is a recipe for failure.  Although after looking at it and doing the math I now realize I averaged about 300 calories per hour, it just wasn't spaced out like I had intended it to be.  Hydration was the other big issue.  I'd refilled my bottles and Camelbak at the turn around in Gilmer.  About five miles out from Mineola I ran dry.  As it gets warmer, I'm going to need to carry more water in areas where towns are widely spaced apart.

·         Speaking as a type II diabetic, yes you can do endurance type events on a diet of mini Clif bars, Clif Shot Roks, Lance wheat and cheese crackers, Fig Netwons, natural peanut butter, Oreo Cakesters, (I know, but they looked tasty!) and Gatoraid.  Oh and the big bag of M&M's at the finish was a bonus!

·         I have to pack my seat bag better and come up with a system that when I need item "X", I can reach in and put my hand on item "X".

·         You don't have to be a hammerhead on every ride!  Sit back, enjoy the company, scenery, and the ride.  And don't forget to take more pictures!

·         The last big take away from this ride...  Make sure you don't accidently hit the stop button on your Garmin bike computer when changing flats.  As much as you wished it would have, it didn't record any data from mile 25 to mile 63.

Of course the next question is what's next?  Proving to myself I can go 125 miles now has me looking once more toward hitting that goal I set all the way back in October of 1988 of a double century, 200 miles all in a day.  That goal had better watch out, this fat old diabetic is sneaking up on it!

03.25.12 Too nice of a day to not ride!

Well last week I promised myself a special treat if I managed to do 100 miles on the bike.

This was taken as I was getting ready to leave to meet up with a fellow diabetic rider.  Can you spot the special treat?

The first part of today's ride was meeting up with Jeff K, who is the manager for Team Red, (the diabetic team for Tour D' Cure).  Jeff and I have been trying to get together for a ride for two months or so.  It was finally nice to meet and get the chance to ride.

The first part of today's ride was a 25 mile ride through the local hilly loop north of the town.  I felt bad for Jeff as he is a transplant from Michigan and his allergies are not yet used to a wet Texas spring and all the pollen.  I can well remember the time my allergies had adjusting down here.

Once Jeff and I finished up, it was just too nice of a day to not enjoy so I headed back out into the county and looped up around Weston.    80 some odd degrees and very light wind with hardly any clouds, days don't get much nicer around here.

What worked and didn't work.  I'd added a new bike bag from Bent Up Cycles and it worked great!  My homebrew mounting system for it though needs work.  Fig Newtons, Clif Shot Roks and Gatoraid continued to do well for nutrition.  I know I should have drank more, but as it was, I was watering trees about every ten miles.  What didn't work was somewhere on my bike I have something loose, time to go rattle hunting.

The total distance for today was 67.22 miles.  A quick check of my blood sugar after the ride showed I was at 93, right in the normal range!  An added benefit of today's ride was getting home and seeing this...

Too bad it's mostly all water weight.  Darn!

My first century in 20 years.

Well I managed to pull it off. 

Every since I did my first century back in 1988 I've loved the challenge of riding long miles.  It just seemed to be something that fit for me, it settled into my soul, this was my event.  The challenge of nothing more than myself, my bike, and a number on my bike computer.   To see if I can go longer than I've done before, to continually set that bar higher and higher.

Unfortunately years ago I'd let my love of cycling slide by the wayside due to career, an auto accident, poor lifestyle choices, (eating the wrong foods), and life.  It just seemed that although I loved to ride my bike, life was just going to get into the way.  Add a wife, kids, dogs and a house into the mix and things got busy.  Who had the time to ride?

The first wakeup call was getting diagnosed with Type II diabetes, the second was becoming insulin dependent, the third and final was realizing if I didn't do something I was going to lose my eyesight.  That third wakeup call I heard.

My wife and I made a change to a better diet, more exercise and a return to cycling via a recumbent.  Once I started riding again, that old love of the long distance ride came to the front in a big way.  While a 20 mile ride was nice, a 50 miler was better, I knew the true challenge was going to be 100+ miles.  That if I could make it 100 miles, especially as a Type II diabetic, I would be back.

All last week I had the nagging question running through my mind, could I do it?  Could I go the distance without blowing up and dying out there on the road?  I needed to figure out if I could do the distance as the local Randonneurs have a Brevet, (200 kilometers, 124 miles) ride coming up the end of the month that I'd like to do.  Saturday morning came around and the weather was right, breakfast was right, the time was right, this was MY day.

I rode it solo, just me to keep myself company.  I enjoy rides by myself, it gives me time to turn the brain loose and let it wander around on its own.  I find that this works great for problem solving, it allows me to look at things from different ways and come up with good solutions.   I tend to call this high speed meditation, (although on some portions of yesterday's ride, low speed meditation would be a better description).  One of the decisions reached was better glucose monitoring.  I'm even exploring the options for a 24/7 monitor for while I am on the bike, I'd really like to see what my glucose is doing during hard efforts.

And of course, there are pictures!

My GARMIN data for those interested is HERE.

Of course no effort like this comes without setting some type of carrot out in front as a treat for accomplishing the goal.  As to what the carrot was, you'll just have to look for the pictures later, I think you'll be surprised.

And once you hit one goal, you have to set the next one to chase.  And yes, I'm going back to that first century my buddy, Glen Handke and I did in 1988.  I looked at him and said, "Well 100 miles was fun, is 200 miles twice as much fun?"

Playing in traffic!

I've decided that it was time to drag out my mountain bike and turn it into a commuter to get back and forth to work.  With gas doing nothing but going up by $0.05 to $0.10 a leap it's time to cut back where I can.

Feed the kids, put gas in my car...  Decisions decisions.  Fortunately feeding the kids won out, if you don't feed them on a regular basis they get noisy and misbehave.

Doing some major digging in my garage unearthed a bunch of forgotten bike bits, I was able to locate my mountain bike fenders, several bits of dead lights and batteries, my old seat bag, (complete with a dead tube) and other somewhat useful bits.

My current plan is to drive to work only on Monday and Friday, and ride my bike the rest of the week.  I can bring three days worth of clothes and necessaries in on Monday and take the dirty stuff home Friday.  My Camelbak HAWG allows me to take my pocket items and lunch daily.

The commute so far is working out pretty good.  A 7.5 mile ride first thing in the morning does wonders for my metabolism, (kick starts it into high gear for the day).  This is good due to fact that with my diet and normal exercise load my metabolism runs for the hills screaming FAMINE and slows way down.  An added 15 miles a day, three times a week really helps the fitness base.

The commute also has another side benefit, as I'm on a bike I see a lot more of what is around and under me.  The other day was free tool day!  It looked like a tool truck has blew up on the road.  Unfortunately for me, it wasn't the Snap On truck but the cheap tool truck, but hey, free is free!

The only negative issue I've had on the commutes has been traffic.  Now it's just commuting through suburban McKinney, through mainly four lane roads, at non peak traffic hours.  One would think this wouldn't be an issue, however it's become an almost daily occurrence that someone gets a bit to close or doesn't want to move over into the open lane next to them and has to try and pass me in my lane.  Mind you, I'm one of those cyclist who believe in wearing high visibility colors, I have enough lights either blinking or shining that I can signal space aliens, I obey the rules of the road, and I ride in a steady and predictable manner, some drivers though just seem to have an issue with a regular bike on THEIR road.  As an aside note though, when I'm riding my recumbent, stupid behavior from drivers is a relative rarity.  My primary defensive weapon when on the bike for idiot drivers is my mirrors.  Since any argument between a bike and a vehicle is going to be a losing situation for me on my bike, I keep a close eye on what traffic is doing behind me and always leave a bailout path to safety.

I'd think of mounting a belt fed machine gun on my bike to solve the inattentive/aggressive driver issue, but aside from the paperwork though, the local drivers would have to get their noses up out of their phones to notice it.  It would only be effective once I went LOUD with it and that brings out so many more problems.

02.25.12 A return to the longer rides.

I know, it's been awhile since I updated this.  It's been a less than fun February and I'm glad to see the majority of it in my rear view mirror.  It's been tendonitis, bronchitis, a sore quadriceps muscle.  It's been friends in intensive care and a funeral for one of them.  Like I said, I'm glad to see February gone.

I'd planned yesterday's route out as an experiment to see if the tendonitis was healed and if my body was back up to riding a reasonable distance.  I wanted familiar terrain so I could judge my effort off past rides.  I also figured that my McKinney, Weston, Gunter & Celina loop would give me a decent 62 miles for my experiment.  Since I've ridden this loop quite a bit, I'm more than familiar with it.

The ride was also a trial run for some new bits of stuff that I've added and or changed on my bike.  I redid all of my cable runs to get rid of the excess cable that was cluttering up my bars, I lowered my bars down by about an inch or so, added some new KoolStop Salmon brake pads for better stopping power when inattentive drivers pull out in front of me.  And I also changed out my shifter system from Grip Shift twisters to SRAM X-7 triggers, (I did that mainly cause I caught a pair of them on E-bay for stupid cheap).  Fortunately all the new bits of stuff I added played well with the bike and everything ran like it was supposed to.

This ride was also going to be another experiment in nutrition and hydration.  Nutrition wise the Clif Shot Roks had been working well for me.  The NUNN electrolyte tablets have been working well also.  The combination of the two together however was causing a gastric reaction such that you could have hung a basket off me and used me for a hot air balloon!  I decided to leave out the NUNN tablets to see if that made a difference.  It did, in both good ways and bad ways.

Breakfast was a banana, two slices of toast with peanut butter, and an IHOP stuffed pastry, (I know, tasty but not nutritious). 

Saturday morning saw Vicky and the kids off to the local trout derby early.  When they left it was pretty chilly out so I hung around the house waiting for it to warm up a bit.  Finally I was motivated to get dressed to ride and as it was chilly earlier, I started breaking out arm warmers, leg warmers, wool socks, an insulated vest, and a jacket.  I'm really glad I stepped outside before grabbing the bike because the weather had warmed up.  I ditched the jacket and headed out the door.  Hindsight being 20-20 I should have ditched the leg warmers and the vest also as I was a little warm.

I did run across something interesting during the ride, I'd just cleared a series of hills I've nicknamed the triple bypass when I spotted something moving out in a scrub covered pasture.  Seems breakfast on the cloven hoof was out wandering around with seven little piglets in tow.  I was almost wishing I'd brought the 30'06 along.  Would have been kind of hard though getting them dressed out with nothing but the little knife in my tool kit, not to mention hauling them home.

McKinney to Weston and up FM3356 was helped by a light tailwind out of the SW at about 7-10.  The tailwind became a quartering headwind into Gunter which slowed me down somewhat.  I was in the process of crawling up a long hill into the headwind when I saw one of Gunter's police officers out watching for speeders.  I figured if he wanted to talk to me it was sure wasn't going to be about going too fast!  Pulling into Gunter it was time to run south on Preston.  Running south on Preston wasn't as bad as I had worried about, the headwind was pretty light and I managed to still make some ok time.   Celina came and went and it was onto CR88 through a gap in Preston road traffic.  I got back into McKinney and was still a little shy of my goal of 62 miles.  A quick trip out on the local MUP fixed that though. 

 

What worked and what didn't work.  All the new parts I added worked great.  The Clif Shot Roks worked great to replace the calories I burned.  Plain water worked well to keep me hydrated during the ride.  What didn't work was my clothing choices, I was a little too warm.  Also, without the NUNN tablets in my water I had nothing to replace the electrolytes my body was consuming during my ride.  My big point of failure was after my ride, I failed to push the water and the electrolytes and consequently ended up extremely dehydrated in the middle of my son's Cub Scout Blue & Gold banquet, think several hundred screaming children and a dehydration headache, it was "fun".

Lessons learned.  Drink more water, make sure to replace the electrolytes, & plan the clothing choices better.

02.04.2012 Lessons Learned

It seems that sometimes I have to re-learn lessons that I already know or should have known.  This week was a case in point that looking back in hindsight, all the clues were in plain sight and had I put them together might have made things a little different yesterday and saved me a whole lot of pain.

First off the clues from early in the week.

• Tuesday's run, about half way into an 8 mile run, my right hip "pinged" hard causing radiating pain from the hip to the ankle.  While it hurt like anything, it went away within 10 to 15 seconds and I continued my run.
• Wednesday's bike crash, while it was a minor slow speed fall and skid, something just didn't feel "right" after that.
• Thursday my back, (which is well screwed up from an auto accident years ago) decided to go south on me.  I put this down to the previous nights "gravity lesson".
• And the marker I really should have been listening to all week was my morning fasting glucose reading were above normal.  This marker will always tell me something is going south in my body and I KNOW to listen to it.  This week I didn't bother.

For yesterday's ride I had the intention of returning to the bigs, for pulling off my first triple digit ride in over 20 years.  My hope was to end up with at least 100 miles on the clock by the time I got home.  My body however had other plans.

I had been planning on riding THIS LOOP, I figured that given 89 miles, I could find a few bonus miles out there to round it up to an even 100.  What I got instead was THIS.

The wind was out of the NW yesterday and was a steady 12-15 mph and did not stop.  I'd figured that I would be ok going into the wind till Collinsville, then I'd have the tailwind to push me home.

I was maybe 10 miles into the ride and still had not settled into a comfortable pace.  My right calf felt like it was on the edge of cramping with every pedal revolution, at least I kept telling myself it was a cramp.  After all, if you repeat the lie often enough it becomes the truth right?  Nope, not in my case.  By the time I was crawling into Pilot Point at about mile 36 the cold hard truth was sinking in, that my right calf wasn't cramping, it was developing a raging case of tendonitis.  I hit a Quicky Mart for a bathroom break and took the opportunity to relax a little and stretch the calf in the hopes it would go away, no such luck.  Another five miles up the road and I shot a quick text message to my wife that I was having trouble just to alert her I would need a pickup.  At that point, I was still thinking I could cut west at Tioga, ride the tailwind to Gunter and head south on Preston with the wind and still manage a decently long ride.  The ride to Gunter, even with the tailwind was sheer hell.  More than a few times I ended up kicking out of my right pedal and letting my right leg hang and just pedaling with my left.  At that point, I knew my ride was done and I was stopping in Gunter and waiting for my wife.

And now my whole game plan for February has been changed.  I'd been eyeballing a 200 kilometer ride with the Lone Star Randonneurs later this month, I don't think that's going to be happening.  At best, I think mid to late March may be reasonable now for my first brevet.

My new plan now is to take at least a week off from the bike and running, (how I'm going to stay sane is another issue).  Lots of RICE, (Rest, Ice, Compression, and elevation) combined with anti inflammatory medications.  If I'm lucky I might be able to get back on the bike for some easy rides in two weeks.  If I don't let this heal and try and push it, things will go south quickly.  I'd rather take two weeks off now, than several months later.