I’m not going any further
I wanted to ride yesterday but it was raining in the morning. I so badly wanted to ride that I kept waking up in the middle of the night to listen for the rain. It rained ceaselessly through the night until a quarter to 10 on Saturday morning, I didn’t get to ride. This morning when I got up I was happy that it was sunny and I was going for a ride. (Don’t get me wrong here, I love the rain, I’m happiest on rainy days, it just so happens that yesterday, it cramped my style.)
When I began my ride this morning I wasn’t sure how far I was going to ride. I was unmotivated, I didn’t have anybody with me, and while this wasn’t a problem my first couple rides, it was a problem now because I experienced riding with a friend. It was difficult to say “I’m going to keep going”
I got to the same midpoint that Robbie and I had gotten to on Thursday and said, ok, 40 minutes, let’s go for an hour and see how far I get. I tacked on another 5 or so miles and when I stopped at the underpass I saw some guys that had passed me earlier and had startled me. They apologized for startling me and I just kindof laughed and smiled and made a comment about being in “the zone”.
Just to double check that I was where I thought I was I said,”I hope this is Rio Bravo because I’m not going any further.”
They laughed, “yeah, this is Rio Bravo, where’d you start out?”
“Alameda”
“That’s about a 27.5 mile ride”
“Good, next time I’ll add 8 more miles and I’ll be set for the Tour De Cure in CA in May”
“Especially if you keep the pace you were moving, you were riding pretty good when we passed you. Good Luck.” And off they went.
I mounted my bike and went back on my way all the way back to Alameda, they were gone from my sights so quickly it was unbelievable, but you know what, I finished my ride, I made it all the way back, and I did it all on my own. (It would’ve been more fun if I could’ve had someone with me, but this just proves the point that “I can do it all by myself”)
The stats for this ride:
Distance: 27.4 miles
Time: 2 hours 8 min
Speed: 12.86 mph
I’m getting close to my goal, if I can keep this speed up and tack on another 8 miles, I’m sure I’m set for CA :)
The note about my diabetes. (I gotta keep track of this stuff somehow.)
My blood sugar this morning was 120, I ate a Clif Bar, there was no short term insulin running through my system. I rode for an hour, checked my blood, it was 202, too high to eat anything, but better than being low. When I got back to my car (another hour later), my blood sugar was 117 a perfect number. While this scenario is better than having the low blood sugar at my midpoint, it’s still not the ideal scenario. I could feel a lag in energy on my return ride, where as when I had the low blood sugar and got to down the glucose gel, there was no lag in energy. I need to get that perfect number at my midpoint check so that I can have the gel and gain the energy.