the tao of cycling: electrolytes

Showing posts with label electrolytes. Show all posts

Monday, July 14, 2014

the goodie tin

so I've been cleaning out my biking goodie tin.
you know, the container that collects all the treats you buy in anticipation of future rides or receive in pre-race bags, and everything left in your pockets at the end of those rides.

my goodie tin included:

a honey stinger waffle, expiration date 08/2012
a honey stinger waffle, expiration date 10/2012
a honey stinger waffle, expiration date 04/2014
4 packs of cliff shot bloks: tropical punch, strawberry, citrus, black cherry
11 assorted Gu's, citrus, vanilla, lemon sublime, raspberry, montana huckleberry, razz, chocolate outrage, and the only one I really like: double expresso.
a baby ruth candy bar, best by 06/2011 ( just kidding, I can't find a date. it's been in there forever.)
a snickers bar almost as old as the baby ruth.

and by "cleaning out" the tin, I mean using items on my rides.

the old honey stinger waffles went first. mm. they get hard after a year or two.
the april 2014 waffle was excellent: soft, yummy.

then the strawberry shot bloks: strawberry is my least favorite flavor. shot bloks are these chewy half-inch cubes packed with electrolytes and some calories. think "dots" candy but softer.
they come 6 to a pack, and I worked my way through the other flavors, ending with the tropical punch, a flavor I like even less than strawberry ~ it comes in blue packaging, which is why I saved it for last, thinking it was something yummy like blue raspberry. my bad.

I've had two Gu's..... and will eventually force myself to have some vanillas and chocolate outrage (best by 11/12). expiration dates here range from 09/12 to 11/14.

what's still in the tin:

honey stinger fruit smoothie energy chews (2/14)
two packs of 100% all natural new zealand whey protein powder, chocolate, exp. 4/15.
a pack of strawberry "heed" sports drink powder, exp. 4/14. I will never use this.
a pack of lifesavers. don't know why this is in here.
a pink lemonade "zip fizz" energy drink powder in a cute mini tube. 3/12.
a pack of "endurolytes" electrolyte replenishment capsules. made with natural ingredients!
4 packs of electrolyte stamina "power pak" powder: 2 acai berry, 2 raspberry

oh, and one packet of "bioZzz instant alpha-lactalbumin supplement," which I think is to help you go to sleep the night before a race.

wow.

by the time I work through all this stuff, my body will probably hate me.
2012? it will say. what are you thinking? throw it out!
2013? well, maybe.
2014? getting closer.

the only 2015 item is something I can't imagine ever using: chocolate protein powder from new zealand. geez.

well, after all this writing and detective work (finding those expiration dates is not an easy thing to do, as buried and as undecipherable as some are), I'm worn out and need something to pep me back up.
I could go for a low-cal energy drink powder in a tall glass of water . . .
or I could check out the snickers.

chocolate wins.
see you on the road! I'll be the one pulled off to the side, probably vomiting.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

God's presence on a hell ride

thank God it was beautiful.

I mean that literally; I was thanking God for the beauty surrounding me, primarily because that beauty was the only thing keeping me going.

pedaling up, forever up, american fork canyon, you can take a stretch of road called the Alpine Loop. the base of the canyon is approximately a mile above sea level (5280' for those of you who've forgotten your equivalents), and the summit of the Alpine Loop is just over 8000 feet.

by the time we reached that summit we had about 5o miles in, and I had used up every electrolyte stored anywhere in my body. biking buddy bob (a physician, no less) said, you don't look good.
I didn't feel good.
in fact, I felt awful. I felt worse than I've ever felt on a ride: dizzy, dripping with sweat, pale, a bit nauseated . . . and it kept getting worse as I stood there, straddling my bike, trying to recover. I finally had to sit down, and eventually I could feel stability (and blood) return.

the next 6 miles were downhill, to sundance ski resort, where we split a sandwich and I downed a powerade and found myself returning to life.

the alpine loop is unbelievably beautiful. in fact, I've placed this picture here to save me the proverbial (and woefully insufficient) thousand words.

and the conifers, the aspen, the trickling stream, the steep granite hillsides, the view of stunning mount timpenogos, are what combined to help me survive the ride from hell.

by the time I made it home, 110 miles, 10,800' elevation gain, 8.5 hours riding time behind me, I felt like I'd survived the most intense (possibly the most intensely insane) thing I'd ever done. I'd been craving a chocolate milkshake for the past 20 miles, and settled for icy chocolate milk, feeling it flush my body with cool hope of recovery.

I promise to never, ever, again undertake a ride longer than 30 miles without electrolytes in my bottle.
and I promise to always, always, to bring God with me on every single ride.

the Male Ego

The other day I was coming down a canyon in my drop bars (two years ago I would have said, 'what's a drop bar?'), working hard, when I came up on two guys who were also heading downhill but at a more leisurely pace. I passed them, said hello as I did so, and pulled back into the bike lane. a few minutes later they went flying past me, faces looking dead ahead, not a single bit of acknowledgment that I even existed on this planet let alone was involved in and enjoying the same sport they were.
I have to attribute this to the male ego. what else can it be? now I know we all have egos, myself included. and mine even shows its ridiculous little head once in a while, or perhaps more often. but the difference between mine and say, those of certain men on bicycles, is that I KNOW mine exists and I can LAUGH at mine. I know my ego was quite excited to pass those guys, and I could also smile because I knew if the men had really been working like I was, they would have kicked my butt down the hill.
I think I pissed them off.
and I'm sure I will be sharing with you much more of my thoughts about the male ego . . .

a little history

I was married, and I had a mountain bike which I rarely rode. we separated, I moved out, and four months later someone stole my bike. the next spring, 2005, I bought myself a new mountain bike. I rode occasionally, and in april 2006 I rode in my first century, the Cactus Hugger in St. George, Utah. I made it 54 miles on that mountain bike, and it took me about 6 hours. I think that included the rest stops where I prayed that someone would steal my bike again . . .
in june 2006 I started riding my mountain bike five mornings a week, a 45-55 minute loop that was intended to be all about exercise. and what I found was that I loved the quiet, peaceful morning full of bird chatter and barely breaking sunrises. by that fall I was hooked, and began considering the purchase of a road bike. I rode up emigration canyon for the first time that Labor Day of 2006, panting and plowing along on my trusty (heavy) bike, and a month later I was the proud owner of my own road bike: I had become a two-bike girl!
a 17-week-long "power camp" over the winter and a handful of new friends kept bicycling front and center in my life, and when spring of 2007 rolled around I was ready to hit the pavement. I rode my first century the end of april, when I again went to St. George and completed that Cactus Hugger. it took me about 7 hours, but this time I rode the entire 100 miles with about 9300 feet of vertical gain. woo hoo!
I started riding canyons around our area, emigration and millcreek, city creek, big cottonwood, little mountain and big mountain, and once--yes, only once--little cottonwood.
then in september of 2007, I rode from Logan, Utah, to Jackson, Wyoming, in the slightly infamous LOTOJA race. I rode, I did not race. and I completed the thing, crediting my good training buddies, the incredibly perfect weather, my support team, and an amazing convergence of all things positive in the universe.
I put in about 3500 miles last season, and as of today, july 19, 2008, I have about 1700 in, adding to it every day.
I have again signed on to ride the LOTOJA race, and my goal is to have just somewhere near as great a ride as I did last year. oh, and to have someone fun to talk with along the way as I got incredibly bored last year . . . star valley is still a nightmare scene in my biking memories . . .
and here is a picture of the machine that has helped me reclaim my life.