Riding in "The Bonk"

There's no fine line between using the correct eating habits and training hard. It's a self-imposed divided highway for me at the moment. I'm doing everything wrong in order to do some things right. Confused I may seem, but it works for me and my body's chemistry.

I want to get my weight down to 160 lbs before January and that is 27 lbs away as of last Thursday morning. Gone are the beer, salsa and chips snacking in the evenings. The rigid diet I used last year to lose 18 lbs in 3 months is back, but with a slight modification: I'm riding in "The Bonk" every afternoon on our training rides and trail rides at Thomson instead of fueling up prior to riding. I do, however, hydrate with H2O hours before. Know that draining, cold chill, stomach wanting to turn over empty feeling that is your body saying, "feed me now or I'll start eating the meat off 'ya backbone!" ?? That is what I'm feeling from 3pm until I get home and eat a cup of fruit for supper. Throw in a 40 mile training ride with some very fast riders in our club and you've got 2 hours of the worst suffering a cyclists can experience. But it makes your body dig into that Done-lap, Dicky-Do, Spare Tire, Swimming Floaty, Table Muscle, Shed for The Tool fat storage that is so damn hard to rid yourself of.

I knew that last night would be rougher than most since all I've had to eat the last couple of days was cereal, a little yogurt, and morning coffee.


"All I had for breakfast was a bagel.................and a grape!!"



Sure enough after the long climb up Hayneville, I ease up a bit to wait on a few riders, got stuck behind a truck, and couldn't ride myself back to the group that had 200 yards on me up the road. They really turned it on as I was attempting to catch, but they didn't know that. Or, maybe they did. It goes without saying that if a group is running 25mph and you're trying to catch running all out at 27 it just ain't gonna happen since a group is more aerodynamically efficient spending less energy for the same speed. After chasing for 5 miles and watching them slip over the horizon, it put a huge damper on my efforts and I did what I've been trying not to do: I sat up. Still determined to ride the entire route, I kept a comfortable pace around 21 and was happy to see after a few more miles that a group was along side the road fixing a flat. Not happy about the flat mind you ~ just happy to have a group to draft off.

I felt bad that I could for one not keep up at the pace these guys were setting, but also that I could not pull worth a plug nickel to do my share. My self induced suffering is gonna piss these guys off pretty soon since they are used to me doing my share, but also pushing them sometimes at a higher pace. So, I'm probably gonna do some solo work from here on out. Not to be un-social, but to toughen up mentally and physically by not relying on others to draft off. Also, I plan to leave a half-hour earlier to get some more miles in each ride.