Food Glorious Food Part 1: My First Bonk

So, every girl likes something to eat while out on a social ride with pals, and since most of my riding up to this point has been "social" and involved cafe stops, rest stops at the tops of hills, etc. I'd never really given food much thought. Then two things happened: first, my OH bought some scales with a body fat thing on it, and second, I had my first proper on-bike bonk.

First, let's talk about the bonk. Basically, rode over to join some Glow buddies for a gentle, social A-ride complete with cafe stop -- so far so good -- then headed off on a very long-winded route that involved a rather late lunch (check) over at Trafford topped off with the ride back home. That's when the trouble started. I had no proper food, just some jelly babies. There was a head wind. It had been a long day, I was tired, and there were hills ahead -- if I avoid hills, I can't get home. I knew what was coming, knew I had nothing left, and suspected that if I wasn't rescued I would spend the rest of my life cold and shivering in a bush beside the road being licked to death by stray, smelly cats. Ugh, I was miserable! My OH phones -- he might be coming home early. Elation! I can get to a nice, warm pub and he can pick me up (so I can miss out that last hill!). He phones again. Change of plan. But I'll be alright wont' I? Yes, I say wearily, I can get home. And I know I can if I have to. And it seems that I have to. Best crack on then... So I do. I shovel jelly babies into my mouth. I would inhale them, if I could. I have a few left in the bag, enough to get me close enough to home for the homing instinct to kick in. I just have to get passed a few more hills. I am almost out of water but I'm thirsty and I can feel my pulse racing faster than usual. I need to relax, stop rushing, relax, get home.

I get home. Thank you cycling Gods and Goddesses. I eat, guzzle herbal tea, take a shower, put on my snuggly fleece pants (more about them another day), and start to feel human again. All Good.

So Sunday comes around. It's a nice day and we're off for a walk in the Peaks. But wait, I feel like shit. We set off in the car, but half way to our start I feel so bad we turn round and come home. I feel like I have a hangover and am not too impressed to be curled up on the sofa in a ball, nursing a sore head, and wondering whether I can hold down solids. I know it's not a hangover, but if feels like one so I try and AlkaSeltzer (my secret weapon in the war against hangovers) and thankfully it works. I am back on my feet but still feeling a little run down, so out comes the laptop and the Googling begins.

headache nausea after a ride
ride nutrition
when to eat
etc.

I read a whole lot of stuff on a whole lot of websites.

While I'm mulling this over, reading up about ride nutrition, I also start pondering a few other things.
I used to use electrolytes in my water, but ran out a while back and hadn't ordered some more. Since AlkaSeltzer fixed me and hydration had definitely been an issue, maybe it was time to stock up and start using them again?

The other thing niggling at me is those damned scales. The OH is having his own personal fitness revival, so introduced these electronic blighters into our life, and they give me a body fat % reading that is not entirely pleasing. I'm small -- I know that, but while I'm thinking about nutrition the things I'm reading suggest maybe I'm not eating right now I'm riding more. I definitely eat, but not necessarily the right things at the right times. Maybe now I'm riding harder, further, I'm not eating enough?

So the result of all this is that I've decided I need to pay attention to this stuff, especially when I ride on my own because that tends to be when I don't stop, just put my head down and go. The journey into nutrition begins...

Racing is addictive

Don't ask me why, but after swearing never to ever ride Mayhem again, I've gone and got myself onto an all-women team of four through the mountain bike club I ride with, Manchester Mountain Bikers. We've had a big push in the club lately to try and encourage more women not only to join but to follow through on their guest membership and actually become full club members. Also, those of us involved in Breeze rides are aware that when those easy rides become too easy, women need places to ride that they can progress, so myself and others have persuaded MMB to have a regular women-only ride (after much discussion, I should add -- some of it heated!) so it was time for me to put my money where my big mouth was and step up and do something to represent women in the club. Encouraging women to race is only one step on from encouraging them to ride, and that really is how I've ended up on the Mayhem team. So what happens next?

Well, training isn't a word I'd use but the fact that the other three on my team are machines (one is riding Fred Whitton in a few weeks, the other rode past me on all the hills last week, and the third member is out four times a week, apparently) means I am probably the weakest link of the four. That's not good, so part of me feels like training of some sort might be in order. But where to start? Well, I'll be posting more on that in coming weeks. I don't really know where to begin so am going to have a broad putting in the miles approach that may or may not be the way to go. Time will tell.

Bib shorts -- crossing a line

So, if anyone had told me, when I first gave up my gym membership in favour of cycling that I would, a) be riding a bike with drop bars, b) be capable of riding 100K and thinking of more, and c) be riding every weekend, rain or shine, I'd have thought they were talking rubbish. But if anyone had said that I'd d) be looking forward to wearing my windproof bib shorts, I'd have laughed so hard at the idea. I mean, even if I ended up doing a, b, and c, d would still never happen, right? Er, well, the day has come and a line has been crossed. I've yet to wear them but I'm really looking forward to be it being cold enough to justify them. Why? Well, I want to ride all year, and remembering how cold I was on some of the MTB night rides I did last year, I was looking for ways to keep warm. When a pal pointed out that bibs mean no draughts, I was sold. What a brilliant idea, my cyclist's brain concluded. The next thing you know I've located a bargain (Gore Oxygen's in XS for £70!) and my credit card has been flexed. Whoop!!

Positively glowing (but not in *that* way)

Today was my first ride out with Team Glow, the all-women group set up by the inspiring Glynis Francis to get 100 women to ride the Manchester 100 in 2011. Well, Glynis achieved her aim. The event was a great success. Many women, some of whom hadn't ridden a bike in years, turned out on the day and notched up an achievement they will never forget. Having joined the team at the 11th hour (on the Thursday before the event!) I hadn't met any of the women before, so was keen to get out on one of their rides and also to have my first group riding experience, as previously my road rides have been either solitary or just with one other person, so no chance for the group riding experience. 100km later (the organised ride somewhat augmented by my ride to/from the start), I'm sitting here enjoying the post ride glow.

We set off from Chorlton, South Manchester at just after 9am, headed out towards the Man United training ground (which I didn't know existed), onto Warrington, Lymm, Knutsford, and then back. At least I think that was the route. The ride was also my first time using Endomondo, and it seemed unable to get a satellite fix for some of the route, so who know really where I was at any one time. For a change, the ride (at least, the organised part of it) wasn't hilly, and the only really tough physical challenge was a long stretch of road that felt like it was on an ever-so-slight incline into a head wind. Oh, and it was just before the cafe stop. Boy, that road felt like it went on forever! Our cafe stop was a very lovely High Legh Garden Centre. As we still had some riding to do a big feed wasn't an option. A shame, because the green Thai curry really caught my eye. The scone was pretty darned good though, and just what I needed in order to get me back to Chorlton. For the ride home, Glynis very kindly took Ang and I in and cooked some toast, made a lovely cup of tea, sold me some Team Glow kit (canny), and then I was on my way back home again.

Despite being absolutely done in, I headed up Matley Lane instead of staying on the main road. Having such a monster hill so late in my ride nearly finished me off completely, but I made it, and the payback was getting to whizz all the way down the hill to my house (instead of having another climb up from the bottom!) After a shower and change, we whizzed off to the pancake shop (next to Kimberley's Bakery) in Glossop. Maple and bacon - mmmmm. Perfect.

A great day out with some big hills and very tingly legs now!

From Blogger Pictures

No more bike bits

Something that's striking about cycling as a hobby is the extraordinary amount of gear that I seem to "need". Defining "need" in this context is complicated, because you could argue do I really need a road bike, do I really need a basket for shopping, a fork upgrade, different pedals, new lights, etc. etc. etc. Paraphanalia rules, and I seem to forever be grabbing a bargain here, sneaking some new shiny part in from the porch here... Considering you'd never usually catch me dead inside a shopping centre, cycling somehow seems to have awakened the latent consumer in me and then some. So, I am announcing here that from 15th month onwards I will be a shopping free zone. I hereby commit to buying absolutely nothing for the next 30 days. Weirdly, that thought brings me out in some form of mild panic. What if I miss out on a special offer for the new road tyres I secretly covet? And then there's the saddle bag I've had my eye on.

Because I'm such a soft touch for a "bargain" (a marketers dream is how one friend describes me) the only way I'm going to get through this (and it's cold turkey or nothing) is by canceling all the e-mail subscriptions for the gazillion bike shops that seem to have me on their mailing list, so they can't dangle some spectacularly good offer under my greedy nose. Those mailshots have uncanny ability to catch me in a weak moment, usually after midnight, with a 30% better discount offer on something that I probably don't need at full price but can probably find an argument for at 30% (or better) off. Grrr. It's so boring! Obviously I love this sport and want to do my bit to keep all the lovely bike shop retailers in business, but the time has come to just ride and stop with the shopping! Besides, I have to save for a new bike :-)

Mayhem here we come!

So having signed up for a Mayhem team in a fit of madness, there are now less than 5 days to go! Oh boy. Luckily there are only three other teams in our category, and we qualify as "oldies", so really there isn't any competition. If we really couldn't be bothered on the day, we could do our one lap each and then hit the bottle for the rest of the day. While that remains a distinct possibility (at least for one of our team, who apparently has a penchant for G&T), there's also the possibility that if we're just a little bit better than any of the other women in our category, we could get on the podium. How funny would that be!?

So that's the funny side of the story. The not so funny side is the question of women's involvement in mountain biking. It's something that's consumed rather a lot of my time this last couple of weeks, as there's been a fairly thorough discussion about it within one of the mountain bike clubs I belong too, which all came about because one my pals within the club suggested women-only rides. Personally I've been shocked by the heated debate it generated in comparison to, say, the introduction of a regular road ride. I'll come back to this another time (it's late now after all), but will just throw it in here as a taster of a discussion I plan to come back to. First I need to get my shit together for Mayhem. Eeekkk!

Back on the road bike

So I've been out on the MTB a fair bit lately, but having signed up for Mayhem (in a moment of madness, way to close to the deadline to have fully considered what saying yes really entailed), I'm kinda in training and want to clock up some miles so my little legs have a fighting chance of getting me round the course at least twice! So, time to get on the road bike.

Since the Manchester 100K last year one of my post-study missions for this year was to build up the road miles, so it was a real treat to get out on Friday (sorry Wills and Kate) and enjoy the quiet roads. To make
my life a little easier, I took the rack (and basket) off the back, and boy, what a different bike it is without that monster rack on it. Because of the disc brakes, I had to get a "special" rack, which cost more than a regular rack and weighs about four times more, so taking it off means I actually have quite a light road bike. Who'd have thought it? I was thinking I needed a lighter bike, but all along I just needed to remove the rack off the back. Genius.

The wind made it tough going, and my first ever climb of Monks Road out of Charlesworth gave my lungs a run for their money, but that was the worst of it. The road bike is such a joy to ride; a totally different day out to a day on the MTB. Not that MTBing isn't joyous -- just that it's a different buzz. Anyway, 28 miles, one ice-cream, two cups of tea, and a cheese sandwich later I was back home with a big grin on my face and some v.tired leggies. A hot bath later and all was well. Not a bad start, and now I'm really looking forward to my next ride.