Feel the Rhythm....

"Maybe you should eat something." 

Maybe you should not tell me what to do. 

"Okay" at that point with nothing else to do except humbly accept that I was bonking, I ate the food. I was riding with two friends at Kenosha Pass last Saturday. The day started off with me planning on eating oatmeal and somehow in the process completely forgot that I had forgotten to eat (thanks brain) which once you have to play catch up it's hard. One of my friends I was riding with is typically on the podium when she races so working to keep up with her I was depleting more sources than I'm used to. The other guy I was riding with stopped to eat so I took some in too but it was too late. Once you hit that level of bonking there isn't really much you can do to get back. I had never bonked that bad and I was happy I was riding with people but at the same time riding by myself I'm not sure I would have gone that far off either. Either way it was good to realize the stages and have

Make sure to eat! 

the worst ride ever a.) with people and b.) before Leadville. Normally when I ride by myself I only get to two levels of bonking the first is agitation, where I'm annoyed with the littlest things, headphone cord gets caught on my camelbak "this is the worst thing ever!" and the next level is when I start incorporating profanities into my riding, making me sound like Frank. Usually I can get back from those, but this one there was no coming back from. It's hard to explain how dark of a place it can be when you're not there. Especially because it was an awesome ride on an amazing trail and here I was cursing the fact that I was out there. I kept quoting Cool Runnings "Feel the rhythm, feel the ride" that worked for about 2 seconds then my body would be like "Nope!" Everything was miserable, there was no rhythm, no getting into a flow, even descending everything felt chopping and loose. So much so that I almost started crying, 3 times. I've never been so happy to see paved roads. Once we got back to the car I was completely fine and it was like the bonk never even happened. It was a good learning lesson but it made me nervous because I was planning on doing a ride on Tuesday up at Leadville and didn't want to be that miserable again. 

Luckily everything I did wrong on Saturday I seemed to do right on Tuesday. I ate breakfast before I left Boulder and then ate another snack when I got to Leadville. I ate and drank by the clock the entire time and felt really well. I wanted to do 40 miles but ended up doing 45 total. I started at mile 40 and back tracked 10 miles and then back again and then past for another 10. It was smooth and fluid and I didn't have to spend multiple breaks trying to figure out where to go because they marked the trail. I think they probably just got tired of me calling and asking for directions even with my big map. It was the same route that I did

Was that so hard? 

the day I crashed but a little more mileage. I did forget how long of a climb Columbine was,  and when I was climbing up, only about a mile from the top ran into a guy walking his bike down. I asked if he was okay, and he needed another tube because he had cut the side wall of his tire and couldn't get any patches to stick because of the sealant inside and popped his tube. I pulled off my camelbak and a honeystinger wrapper that I had saved and put the wrapper in the tire to seal off the side wall puncture and then took my extra tube out which would have ended great if it was the right tube size. It was the wrong tube size even for my bike. No, I don't work at a bike shop.... Sometimes I think about how desperate people must be if they let me help them. Luckily we were able to make it stretch and at least send him on his way. I didn't see him on my way back so I'm assuming he made it.... The ride went really well, I average 10.1 mph, which if I can maintain that for Leadville I will be beyond stoked. 

I've started my last training block leading up to the 100 miles and part of that is incorporating the 50 mile race. Which is tomorrow. The route is completely different from the 100 and has 7500 feet of climbing. I'm trying to not focus on the fact that it's a race and look more at it as a training ride. I'm a little nervous though, especially about my stomach even at low altitude sometimes I have problems so we'll see how it goes. But I have plenty of GUs, bars and bananas. I did switch out my wheels finally and took off 1.4 pounds off my bike, which is awesome. The guy who worked on my bike was astonished that I would even consider running my tire pressure about 30psi- he's usually right around 23. Clearly I shouldn't tell boys that to get a date. I did ask the guy who worked on my bike what to do if I run into a mechanical issue that I don't know how to fix, he told me, "You're a girl, flirt, hard."

Be my boyfriend? I bet he has corndogs! 

I'm expecting the start tomorrow to be entertaining. You start and run up this hill and then get on your bike and ride. With being uncoordinated and not exactly flexible I'm just hoping to make it on to my bike at some point. If you're in the area and need some comic relief it starts at 9! 

When I'm done tomorrow I will be one happy camper!