I have been finding the last few weeks of training to be a lot of fun, and the better weather has helped massively with my overall outlook on cycling. There is really only so much that you can do while battling into the teeth of a gale.
The Bank Holiday Monday just gone I decided to up the mileage a bit and do a solid first cycle of the season, aiming for a 50 mile route in the vicinity of Twickenham. Previously, the Manly Steed and I had been out for 40 mile trip in Kent back in the middle of May, and seeing as training has been going well we decided on something that goes against the grain of my cycling philosophy: just how fast could we cycle a 50 mile course?
We set out on an initial 26 mile loop to Chobham (a lovely place and straightforward to get to) and got there after 58 minutes and 15.5 miles of cycling. It was a nice day, a little overcast and with some wind but not too much: just enough to cool me down.
The Manly Steed had been in for a full service and had a new gear cable which was making things much smoother, and we flew over the M25 feeling pretty good with ourselves.
We stopped in Chobham at a small church and I ate a Powerbar thingy, chewing it down and drinking GoGo Juice from the Camelpak as I did so, before climbing back onto the bike and heading back towards Kingston.
In his book 'The Man Who Cycled The World' (a really good read!), Paul Beaumont talks about getting into the zone where you can keep going and going and everything feels good. I felt this way for about 10 of the next 15 miles or so as we cruised along at between 15 & 17 mph, passing back under the M25, into Addlestone and along the Thames and past Hampton Court Palace.
We stopped at the 2 hour mark to see how far we had come, and we had smashed out previous best mileage and hit 31 miles, a new personal best.
And this, ladies and gentleman, is where i went into a fairly significant bonk sat on the side of the road.
For those of you unfamiliar with this term, bonking for cyclists is like runners hitting the wall: it's where you run out of energy and just... cannot... physically... go... on.
After a while you find quite scarily that fitness just doesn't do it for you: it is all down to nutrition, and how much you have eaten. Put it like this: your car will only go for so long with one tank of gas before it sputters out and you sit like a numpty on the side of the road waiting for the nice man with the AA van.
I'm a big guy, and my engine needs lots of fuel. I figure that I get 1.5 - 2 hours of steady cycling on one big meal before I need to refuel, and then I'm snacking every 45mins to an hour. It's actually less than that when I've been doing high mileage every day for a while as my glycogen levels (basically the fuel storage) have been depleted.
On a long day's ride of 70+ miles over mixed terrain I have burned between 4,500 and 5,500+ calories, more than 3 times an average persons daily consumption. It is a constant battle for me and one which sometimes I lose, hence the bonking.
Once I bonk, it is really very hard to get my energy levels back up to a place where I can/want to carry on.
Having eaten my remaining 2 Powerbars I saddled up once more and headed into Kingston, over the bridge and up towards Ham Gate. What is normally an easy and straight forward ride became a hell of a challenge, and my right knee started playing up with pain at the front of it, probably caused by the high gears I'd been pushing in the first 2 hours.
I stopped 6 miles later having looped back to Ham Gate via Sheen and Richmond, and had a vanilla tasting evil sugar gel thing in a foil packet. Bonking, as per earlier, had resumed.
I then ground my way home, deciding to cut a couple of miles off as my knee was now really complaining. I stopped briefly to move my saddle backwards which seemed to help, and I struggled the last mile homewards having finished 47.5 miles in 3hr 04mins of cycling, with about 15 mins off the bike.
In retrospect I would have eaten better that day, but it is a constant battle to get enough calories in while out on a longer cycle.
My next major target for the year is to break 100 miles in a day. I'll aim to do a 70 miler before that, but I think that I'll manage that ok if training so far is anything to go by.
My tip for the year: eat lots more than you think you should!! And I do not sponsor nor endorse Powerbars - they just happened to be the only thing in Evans Cycles I liked the look of!
