So I got up early this morning.. 4:30am early. Yes, 4:30am does actually exist and isn't just a time where clocks jump ahead. I was going on a ride. It was supposed to be 4 hours... up to Wisconsin and back. The bad thing? Wind.
The wind was coming out of the south.. which is odd for this area of the country. Going up was awesome. We were flying... easily pushing 27mph without even trying. Of course we realized it was going to suck coming back. Oh, we also started a little late.. but that is neither here nor there.. except we started the ride 2 hours from the time I had eaten breakfast.
So we are riding.. turn around... and bam. Face full of wind. And this isn't pansy 10 mph winds. These are 30-40mph winds... winds that want to pull your bike out from underneath you. Winds which force you to pedal on downhills or else risk coming to a complete stop. I've never ridden in winds this bad before. Pushing as hard as you can and barely breaking 12mph... it was disgustingly bad.
Thus, what had been planned to be a 4ish hour ride turned into a 5+ hour ride. Now, this probably doesn't seem like a bad thing right? More time in the saddle means more training... right? Wrong! Nutrition and liquid consumption are pretty import factors when doing a serious training ride. I had planned for 4 hours.. so I brought enough stuff for.. probably about 4.5 or so... As we are coming in the last 10 miles or so... I'm out of gels, have maybe a swallow of water left... and I'm bonking hard. It was pretty bad at this point. The winds are still trying to crash me... I'm getting light headed, I can feel my blood sugar bottoming out... yeah.. that was pretty scary. I wanted to stop and lie down in a drainage ditch and wait for someone to come pick me up.
We finally stopped at a 7-Eleven. Less than 5 miles from our destination. I felt sort of like a pansy.. but that snickers tasted like heaven, or at least the edible parts of heaven.. which I assume is the clouds, halos, and possible wings. Anyways, we ate, rested, then headed out. I feel I could have finished without the food, but damn it was good.
The ride was a good one, nice scenery.. decent roads.. very few obnoxious drivers (Only 1 can of skoal thrown at us).. so all in all a decent ride. The winds were a little much.. but so it goes.
Later
3 comments:
It sounds pretty badass to say "we rode to Wisconsin and back". Too bad about the bonking though. Eat more pancakes!
i almost yelled some choice obscenities at a biker who was riding smack down the middle of the road yesterday...but i stopped myself because i somehow figured you might find out and kill me.
I yelled at so many people in the half-ironman I did who were riding incorrectly and dangerously. It is ok to ride to bad bikers. I do it all the time.
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