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Ride Prep – Just As Important When Going Short

05.08.2012 by Ray Niekamp // 2 Comments

My friend Aaron West over at the Steep Climbs blog complains that he was ill-prepared for a major training ride the other day. He didn’t hydrate properly, didn’t eat right the night before the ride, and didn’t eat the morning of the ride. So he only managed to cover 100 miles with 9,300 feet of climbing in 6 hours, 39 minutes.

Well, Aaron is in a different league than I am. But I had much the same experience as he did that day. And what happened to me is a reminder that we all must attend to the necessities of prepping ourselves for our rides, no matter how tough or modest they might be.

I had ridden a brisk ride Saturday morning, and even added some bonus miles to my regular Saturday route. I felt great. Legs were strong, plenty of air in my lungs. I looked forward to a Sunday morning ride in the Hill Country with friends.

But at about 1 a.m. Sunday, a flash of lightning and a crash of thunder right over head jolted me out of my sleep. Lord knows we need rain around here. We thought we were recovering from last year’s drought, with decent rain in February and March, but April saw the dryness return. They’re already going to stringent watering restrictions in some areas around here, so we’re happy to get the rain.

Only trouble was, the lightning and thunder kept up their pyrotechnics show all night long, and I had trouble getting back to sleep again. I’m not sure if I ever did, really. Finally, at about 5 a.m., I couldn’t stand staring at the ceiling anymore, so I got up and made some coffee.

It was clear I wouldn’t be riding that morning. I emailed my friends to cancel. They were apparently up early, too, because I soon got a reply that they weren’t going out, either. I read the morning paper, watched a little TV, and finally decided to get something to eat.

Two pieces of toast with jelly took care of breakfast. I had a second cup of coffee and started surfing websites on the iPad. Eventually, the storm passed to the east, and I could think about riding again.

I hit the road at about 11 a.m. The streets were almost dry, the sun was out, and the air was so humid you could wring it out. I thought I’d do a modified version of my Friday night route, which keeps me on neighborhood streets, and can cover anywhere from 19-25 miles.

At about six miles into the ride, I do a couple of hill repeats on a residential street that’s really not much of a challenge. But this time, I knew I was in trouble. I couldn’t maintain the cadence I wanted, and found myself downshifting more than usual on this little hill. The second time around, I couldn’t even maintain a decent cadence one gear lower than the first time. I was huffing and puffing at the top, glad for the break.

I did a lap of the Veloway, which is mostly flat except for one short steep hill. But I decided I’d ridden the Veloway enough that week, and I headed out to add more mileage.

I had plenty of water. The night before, I’d put two 24-ounce water bottles in the freezer. I only brought one on the ride, but that’s fine for a two-hour neighborhood ride, and I could always fill up at the water jugs at the Veloway entrance. I was drinking regularly, even a little more often than my usual three-mile drink intervals.

Water wasn’t the problem. Nourishment was. On Sunday mornings before club rides, I tend to make myself a hearty breakfast. Today, as I said, just toast. I don’t carry energy bars or Shot Bloks or anything like that when I’m riding in the neighborhood, and I could feel the energy drain from my body. By the time I reached the 20-mile mark, I was done in. But you can’t (I can’t, anyway) ride less than 20 miles on my long mileage day of the week. I took a couple of turns that put me farther from home.

But it was no good. I checked the bike computer and calculated that I’d have 24-25 miles under my belt if I turned around and headed back at this point. It was a slog. I was in a bike lane on a decent asphalt road, but struggled to keep up a steady pace. Have you ever felt relief when you pull up to your house after a ride? I did that morning.

What’s the takeaway? Prep for your routine rides much as you would your tougher ones. I should have had the same kind of breakfast I would have had if I’d done the Hill Country ride. Adequate sleep is important, although I did go back to bed and grab a catnap before I got into my bike clothes. I’ve stopped carrying any kind of electrolyte stuff on most rides. The right kind of stuff does help, I’ve found.

I’ve got a little time off over the next two weeks, and I’ll be riding more than usual. You can bet I’ll get ready for each ride with more diligence than I employed last weekend.

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Categories // food, Rides Tags // food, hydration

Winter Weight Gain

12.08.2011 by Ray Niekamp // 2 Comments

Throughout the summer, my biking weight stayed close to constant. Oh, I gained and lost a few pounds here and there, but it was within a narrow range a little above 200. I was satisfied with that.

That was summer. Now, it’s winter. Even in frying pan hot Texas, we’ve got cold air coming down from the north, and I’ve been bundling up on rides lately. But I’ve also been eating the kind of comfort food that is so well suited to cold weather. And an unsurprising thing has happened since Thanksgiving — I’m once again putting on my winter weight.

This is a pattern that I’ve gotten used to over the years. I slim down in the summer, and gain it all back — and more — in the winter. The saving grace for me is that when I ride, I know I can knock off some poundage. Just yesterday, I came back from a brisk 18-mile ride, hopped on the scale, and found I was down three pounds from the previous day. Now, I know those three pounds were back on by the time I’d finished off supper, but it was nice to see the needle on the scale move in the right direction for a change.

My wife gets into the same rut. She complains every year that she’s getting heavier around the holidays. But unlike me, she actually does something about it. She’s a terrific cook, and about this time every year she starts making meals that are light on calories and long on flavor. I can eat to my heart’s content, and still have a good shot at dropping some of that excess turkey weight.

So, I guess winter brings me the best of all possible worlds. We get to keep riding our bikes, even though we’re bundled up a bit more than usual, I get to keep eating well, and with any luck, I’ll start the riding season in March or so at a weight not appreciably higher than it was when I ended the serious riding season in October. I’m looking forward to the next few months.

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Categories // food Tags // food, weight

Drinking Enough

07.31.2011 by Ray Niekamp // 4 Comments

One of my continuing problems on the bike is drinking enough liquids to keep me fueled during the ride. In early July, I complained about running out of gas out in the country. The problem, I figured, was a lack of high mileage rides. A few days later, a biking friend of mine suggested something else.

“It sounded to me like you weren’t drinking enough,” he said.

My wife nodded in agreement. But then, she’s always after me to do a better job of staying hydrated and fed on longer rides. I thought about what had happened that day, and concluded that my friend was probably right.

I used to have dual water bottle cages attached to my seat. But I got rid of them last year, because I didn’t like the way they scrunched my seat bag. That left me with one bottle cage on my down tube. I usually carry a 16-oz. bottle, and always felt it was enough. But that’s on rides close to home, where I can always get a refill.

On that early July ride, we had no facilities for refills. No one’s house, no convenience stores, not even a spigot on private property we could sneak water from. I was babying my 16 ounces over a 41-mile ride. That won’t do it.

So, I decided to reform. On a solo ride two weeks later, I decided I would use prompts to remind me to take a drink. Instead of setting my trip computer to distance, I kept it set to elapsed time. Every 10 minutes, I tried to take a drink. Those 10 minutes became a ballpark figure I could work around — sometimes I drank after only eight, more often I drank after around 12. I planned on stopping at a convenience store at the 22-mile point in this 38-mile ride. I bought a bottle of Gatorade G2 there, and downed half of it while resting. I added ice to the water bottle and mixed the rest of the Gatorade with the water. A Clif bar went down nicely during the rest stop, too. I finished the ride relatively fresh.

Emboldened by my new system, I was ready to apply it to a longer ride yesterday (Saturday). The ride was going to be 44 miles. It was a route I had never ridden, but there would be support. The ride leader indicated that a convenience store was about 20 miles into the ride, but we would have to go off course a little bit to reach it.

This time, I didn’t go by time to determine when to drink — I went by miles. I determined to drink every three miles. It worked, too, mostly. I never missed by more than a mile. I had gotten out the seat-mounted water bottle cage at put it on the previous day. I half-filled two 16-oz. bottles the night before and put them in the freezer. That morning, I topped them off with water, so my water supply was relatively cold.

My bike with the seat-mounted water bottle cages. (Pic is from the first time I carried them, over a year ago.)

At the convenience store, I bought my usual bottle of Gatorade G2, and I could stash it in the down tube cage, since that wasn’t taken up by water bottles this time. At a rest stop at a picturesque country church, I trashed the empty G2 bottle and topped off my water. I had been munching on a Luna Bar for a while, and that helped, too. Even though the ride turned out to be 48 miles instead of 44, and finished with a series of challenging hills, I felt good at the end.

Then came today. I was leading a B ride with the club. It was a 30-mile round trip on a route featuring rolling hills. Again, two iced water bottles. Again, I tried to drink every three miles. But today was different. Because of the hills, I had trouble finding a good spot to drink. Flying down hill, I wanted to keep both hands on the bars. Going uphill, I needed both hands to help me pull up the slope. At the 15-mile turnaround, I realized I had drunk only twice. I downed the rest of my first water bottle.

At a convenience store two-thirds of the way through the ride, I got some ice and filled the one bottle I’d drunk from. The break helped, and I drank a lot from the other bottle. I was pleased to note that I finished strong.

“Eat before you’re hungry, drink before you’re thirsty.” We’ve all heard that jillions of times. But it bears repeating.  I have a pretty good idea of just hat I have to do to stay adequately fueled. From here on out, it’s just a matter of making sure I do it.

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Categories // food Tags // food, water

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