On Riding and GPS

My shiny new GPS crapped out on me during the Sunday ride. Which is kind of upsetting because when the guys at the BCC put pedal to the metal, so to speak, I was able to, sort of, hang on. I would rather not mention names here, but suffice it to say, two guys got the pack going fast, damn fast and then after we turned from Burnhamthorpe onto Trafalgar the two guys dropped the rest of us, I checked, when they parted with me, I was doing a steady 42, they apparently were doing 55.

At least I can draw comfort from the fact that the impact of the recent blood donation is still very obvious. It will take me at least two more weeks before I am running at full strength. Anyway because the GPS failed on me I will use language to describe the route, instead of a map. Smoother than the walls on a Vancouver leaky roof condo.

Saturday I also went for a ride. I better not say who came with, it was only one other person and he asked to go to Vivian Road. So, instead of riding out to Oakville as was planned we went North. We were doing fine up until the part where the person I was with bonked. Bonking is not a pretty thing to be around or to do. For the non-endurance types out there, assuming you run, ride or swim at about 70% of your max heart rate your body will be unable to extract enough food energy from your fat reserves to offset what your muscles are consuming, roughly two thirds of the energy you need you can get from fat, but the other third has to come from somewhere else. Now initially your body draws on energy stores in the muscles themselves, called muscle glycogens after about an hour or two your glycogens run out, and that is when you need some other energy source.

This is where supplementation comes into play, sure you need water, but you also need energy, and there is a great deal of research on this topic much of it publicly available. I mention water because the time I went to Harriston ON with Aaron and Sigrid I bonked, really hard, recovered (had a flask of gel) and then bonked even harder after the gel ran out. It was a hot day and I had plenty of water in my bottles but what I lacked was supplementation, once I had finished the two bottles instead of bringing bags of powder supplements, I simply refilled with plain tap water. Well on the ride up to Vivian road my friend had plenty of Gatorade which he finished off within the first 20% of the ride and then ran on water. Now I could insert an angry diatribe about how useless Gatorade is and how no athlete worth their weight in lard should ever even consider Gatorade as a primary fuel source (Gatorade is what you take when you ran out earlier than expected and you are in the middle of nowhere and your choice is sugar under the brand name Gatorade or sugar under the brand name coke-cola.) But the point is my friend was only bringing in energy for the first 20%, thereafter he was exhausting his muscles glycogens with nothing coming from the stomach to offset the deficit spending that was going on. Hence he bonked. He bonked so badly that even with half a bottle of electrolytes with carbs in water and half a bottle of protein with carbs in water (I keep at least one bottle of each with me on all rides now) and two granola bars (the granola bars were an added bonus I don't always keep around) my friend still could not keep up. Once you bonk, recovery is a long process that usually involves rest or at least reduced output for a good hour or so.

In other news, today I took Commissioners street on my ride to work. Commissioners is good in that there is a lot less traffic than say Dundas or Queen Street, but it is in such deplorable disrepair often I don't even consider using it. Sure a Roubaix might be designed for cobble stones, but I don't think my tyres or my rear end is so good with the potholes. Anyway I got to the light at Don Roadway and Commissioners and as the light was red I waited, as the light changed I pulled forward and as I headed off I heard someone yelling, so I turn and look, I was blocking a guy from making a right turn onto Don Roadway. I think he was yelling something about bikes not belonging on the road, I wouldn't know, I could hardly hear him what with all the noise from the hot air escaping from the large hole in his head that had lips, teeth and a tongue.

The problem with drivers in Toronto is that they are allowed to.