Still down with Stomach Bug

So, I'm still down with the stomach bug/ food poisioning. It is really frustrating, because not only can't I ride, but I can't eat. Well, I can, but not very much or anything that tastes good. Any attempts to fill up or enjoy a meal result in massive stomach pain. On the plus side, I will probably be the only person without an eating disorder to lose weight today.

Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday rides

So, I rode Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday.  Thursday was the usual hills ride with Gary and Pete. One critical difference is that I borrowed an aluminum/ carbon frame from my friend Gloria. The ride was amazing, because the compact crankset gave me some easy climbing gears, and that combined with a lightweight frame made the hills seem so... cute and little.

Saturday, I was back on my Nishiki, and going to do my typical Saturday 8am tempo ride, but I got a flat on the way to the starting point. It took me 20 minutes to fix, so rationally I should have waited for the 8:30 group, and gone with them. Instead, I decided to solo ride the route and see if I could make up that 20 minutes. So, I stepped on the gas and held onto 21-26 mph and hoped that I'd catch up. I didn't. When I got to the long or short route split and I still hadn't caught the group, I decided to go short and at least ensure that I wasn't the absolute last cyclist to show up at the endpoint. The 8:30 group finally caught me at point N on the map below.


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Sunday's Ride was a disaster. I didn't sleep well saturday night, and was so tired and out of it sunday morning that I forgot to eat breakfast. I was planning to do a 90+ mile mountain ride, again on the borrowed bike. It was foggy and cold at the start of the ride, and I had mis-adjusted the seat and it was killing me. I got as far as the OHV Staging area on 39 before the punishment set in. I'll spare the play-by-play reenactment, but the fun included Vomiting, Diahhrea, Fever, Weakness, and Exhaustion. I left home at 8am, and the sickness hit me at 10. I didn't make it home till 3pm, and then only with an emergency pick-up from my sister. I spent the rest of the day wrapped in a blanket with a bucket close at hand.

Today, I'm feeling weak, but most of the symptoms have subsided. I think that it was either a particularly nasty stomach bug or mild food poisioning from the leftovers that I'd had.

The Importance of Eating before Riding

Yesterday I did the typical hill ride with John and Gary, with one important difference.

I had forgotten to anything after breakfast that day.

The difference made itself felt immediately as we started going up Lida. I just couldn't hold my usual pace - What was going on? At the top of Lida the flash struck me - I'd forgotten to eat lunch or an afternoon snack before the ride. I was riding on breakfast only.

By the time that I made it up St. Katherine for the first lap, I had decided that I was bonking (using the last bit of energy in my muscles) because I couldn't keep up with Gary and John. Not at all. I had to stay out of the saddle the entire time to keep pace with their standard conversational speed. The second round up I was so tired that I just wanted to get off my bike and nap. Seriously. I kept yawning, and couldn't concentrate at all. The third round yawning gave way to lightheadedness.

Gary and John must have realized that I was in a bad way while cruising over to Figueroa. Was it that I couldn't keep both of my eyes open at the same time that gave me away, or that was too tired to be paranoid and super-slow on the descents? True to form, they kept me going by talking about all the food that I would have at home. If I said I had a bit of spaghetti, pretty soon they had talked it into Fettuccine Alfredo with Garlic bread and a glass of wine. Of course, each item was described in minute and aching detail.

I ground through the Figueroa climbs chasing the visions of Spaghetti dinners, Ice Cream sundaes,  and In-N-Out burgers. To be honest, I barely remember the climbs, but the imagery of the food is stamped on my memory in Technicolor. On the final descent down Salvia Canyon back to the parking lot, I realized that I had a Trader Joe's frozen pizza in the freezer.

That was the best frozen pizza of my life.

Two Days Off.

I have an excuse for taking two days off, I promise! The smoke from the local fires that broke out on Saturday was blowing directly into the San Gabriel Valle area on Sunday, leaving all of Pasadena in a soupy brown fog. I had a headache the whole day, which I thought at first might be a hangover, but soon realized got worse when I went outside. Needless to say, there was no way I was going to do strenuous activity that day.

Monday is typically a rest day for me, and although I felt a little odd about missing Sunday. I decided not to ride for three reasons: I needed to do job searching,  I was still pretty sore from Mt. Wilson and GMR, and I was worried about the smoke from the fires catching me mid-ride.

Meet GMR

So, today was the long ride with lots of climbing. It was easier than last time I tried the route, but I think that Mt. Wilson left my legs a little more drained than they would have otherwise been. The total distance was 79 Miles, and I heard one of the riders with a GPS computer say that we did 3,600 feet of climbing.

All told, there were 7 of us who did the ride. I knew 5 of the people, and one of the new people was apparently a Racer. The new people were super strong, usually out in the front of the group, and occasionally out of sight when the group broke up on the long climbs. However, they seemed like nice enough guys.

Okay, now i'm going to nap for the next few hours and try to convince my legs that I really don't hate them. Oh, and heres the map of the ride. GMR is the O-R section up in the mountains. the rest of the ride is pretty much just the Montrose route, which is my typical Saturday ride.


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Friday's Ride: Mt. Wilson by Moonlight

Tomorrow I have a very long and hilly ride. I expect ~5000 feet of climbing over the course of 80 miles. Naturally, you don't want to attack a ride like that with stiff and lazy legs, so this evening I went for a warm up ride. Since it was a full moon and a warm night (the low is 60) I decided to take a jaunt up Angeles Crest to get away from the city lights. It was so enjoyable that I kept pushing my destination farther and farther out, until before I knew it I was on top of Mt. Wilson. It was beautiful to have the whole road to myself, bathed in moonlight bright enough that I didn't even need to turn on my headlight. When cars did come by, I could hear them minutes before they got to me, and so I had plenty of time to meander over to the shoulder of the road and set my headlight to 'seizure inducing' so that any car within a mile or two could see me. I took some pictures on my iPhone, but haven't yet downloaded them.

Stay tuned tommorrow for those pictures and the long ride report.

In the meantime here is the route that I took.


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Thursday's Hills

The ride yesterday was the same as on Tuesday. John didn't make it, so there was no joking to speak of, but we managed to find other things to gossip about.

Yesterday I noticed that I was beginning to memorize the turns on St. Katherine. Before, I was just trudging along, mentally asking myself "Are we there yet?" Yesterday, for the first time, I noticed myself saying "Oh good, only 3 more turns," or "That short steep section is next." Other than that, I notice that I'm acclimating to these hills, and slowly inching up the speed on my descents. I've still got a long ways to go until I catch up to Gary, but its clear that youth has its benefits.

Shopping List: Headlight

Today I have to see about getting another headlight, and possibly some arm/ leg warmers.

The Hill rides that I wrote about in the last post start at 6 PM (sunset is before 5pm these days) and typically last until 7:30 or 8 PM. Also, big sections of the hills we ride lack streetlights, so lights are important, both to see and be seen by cars.

I had Jerry-rigged an old headlight that had already broken twice, but last Saturday in the beginning of the ride, it fell off and promptly got run over by the entire pack of cyclists. It was no big loss, though, since it was really not designed to help me see anything, only to make me visible to cars.

I've got to replace that light today. While I'm out, I'm going to check the prices on arm and leg warmers.

Warmers are essentially just spandex sleeves that you put on to turn the normal riding shorts into pants, and short-sleeved jerseys into a long-sleeved version. Its a nice convenient alternative to long underwear, but they can be ridiculously expensive - from $10 to $60 a pair. If I can find some on the cheap ($40 all in) I'll consider it. Otherwise, I'll just start wearing long johns under my regular setup.

Tuesday's Hills

So, I ride the hills near the Rose Bowl with my Cousin Gary and two of his friends on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Below is the route. We did three Laps up St. Katherine (Markers I, G, and H) and three Laps up Figueroa (From K to J). The total ride showed up on my computer as 21 miles or so.

It is fun riding with Gary and John because they're such strong riders that they can talk and joke around while riding these hills. Listening to them be silly is a great way to take my mind off the burning in my legs, and the fact that an 'easy' pace for them is just about all I can manage. They also are a great motivation to push beyond my comfort zone, because if I slow down or try to 'take it easy' they leave me in the dust.

Another interesting thing is that the temperature at the Rose Bowl is much colder than up in the hills. Descending off the hills on the way back to the Rose Bowl is like diving into a cold swimming pool - there are points where the air seems to drop ten or fifteen degrees in just a few feet.


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Update!

Okay, so I haven't posted here in a long time. Whats new? Well, I finished the internship at Oaktree Capital Management that I loved so much, and have been job searching and relaxing a little bit since.

In an effort to keep this blog alive, I'm going to start posting about my cycling.

I've decided to train for the King of the Mountains Challenge. The challenge is to complete three 100+ mile bike races that each have 12,000+ feet of climbing. I've heard that each of the three are in the Top 10 hardest bike races in the USA. To win the challenge, the races have to be completed in a single racing season.

So, I've been doing a lot about riding to get myself ready. Luckily, I've got lots of support: My cousin Gary is a super-strong cyclist and has introduced me to a lot of his friends, and the local bike clubs do an number of rides at different skill levels.

For the near future, I'll be blogging about my riding. I may be posting links to Google Maps, or maybe just putting up times. For now, here is a chart showing the mileage that I've put in each day so far.