A Tale of Two Rides

I headed out the door Sunday just before noon for Bella Bru. Being the last day of February I wanted to get some more miles in for the month. I had posted the ride with short notice, so wasn't too surprised no one showed up to ride, but I met a large group of riders who turned out to be part of the Sacramento Bike Hikers. They gave me a schedule, which I somehow managed to stuff in my jersey, and pushed off.

The ride was not slow, and maybe not even sluggish, but I just couldn't seem to get out of my own way. I got passed and decided to try to pace myself off the faster rider, who promptly tried to drop me. I stayed with him for ~ 5 minutes but just didn't have the top end I usually do.

My initial destination was Beal's Pt, but I decided to stop in Folsom, eat part of a Powerbar and get some water. The Gatorade I made up was from some old powder, and it was making me nauseated. I took 15 minutes and still didn't feel any better. Worse, my calf tear was really bothering me and I can't afford another tear, so I decided against climbing Beals, and headed home. It turned out to be about the same distance because of the detour down to Bella Bru and William Pond Pk, but a lot flatter.

When I got home, disgusted, I uploaded the Garmin 305's telemetry to my computer and it pretty much said the same thing. Of particular concern is my HR only got up to 165 when I was red-lining hanging onto the rabbit. I had plenty of time, was  well recovered, and my calf was screaming. I scratched my head and stewed. WTF? Another bad ride?


On Monday, with rain forecast for the day after, I was reluctant to ride, but wanted to get March off to a good start, so found some clean riding clothes and got dressed. Steering clear of the bad Gatorade I instead mixed some PowerBar Electrolyte powder in my waterbottle and grabbed 3 Powerbars - resigned to eating solid ride fuels.

Almost as a fluke I decided to take a mega B vitamin, a multi vitamin, 500mg of C, and 1,000mg of calcium, magnesium and zink. I washed that down with a little OJ and headed out the door with just a bit of nausea.

I decided to just cruise and rest the calf while logging some miles. I started out slow, but stood and hammered a bit climbing a short hill at about the 3mi mark. I noticed my calf was behaving, and my breathing was relaxed and easy. Hummm.

I stopped to talk to a local news crew that was setting up to shoot a story for TV a couple of miles later at Sunrise, and again was surprised at how smooth and strong I was shifting through the gears. Determined to take it easy, I loafed along at 17-21 for the next 4 miles until some doofus refused to ride single-file when facing on-coming traffic.

For all of the complaints I hear about motorists being asses on the road, fellow bicyclists who won't read or follow the rules just really get my goad - especially since the #1 cause of accidents on the bike trail is head-ons caused by exactly that. Stupidly, he started talking trash and I gave him a good bracing up. Riders like that give us all a bad name, and tarnish our reputation as responsible users of this awesome resource. Having said my piece, I took off pretty agitated.

Nice thing about riding is you have a ready outlet for such angst, so I took full advantage when two riders I had passed earlier caught up and passed me - riding much faster than earlier. We played cat and mouse until the bridge at WBP where I red-lined it and passed both of them decisively.

When I got home and looked at the Garmin trace I again saw proof of my subjective impression, that I was riding much stronger. My HR had maxed out at 171, a full 6bpm faster than the day before. The whole ride had just been much easier - in spite of hammering it hard on the lap from CSUS back to WBP. Yea B vitamins!!!