Lance Pants and the Monster Ride

(This is Maurice). I'm including pictures of my Cyclodelics team mates. We average 13 to 15 mph . This week's ride was a 17.5-mile there and back from Kent to Puyallup (pronounced pew-yallup [rhymes with gallup]). Don't worry about, no one knows how to pronounce it. Stats are 2 hours 34 minutes to complete, average speed 12.9, total calories 16622, average heart rate 113, max heart rate 139, total elevation gain 711 feet. This is the same route as we will follow during the July STP route. I practiced good eating and hydration habits. I consumed 2 liters of liquid and 440 calories (1 package of kola chok blox and 1 blueberry crisp Clif Bar). Chok blox are thick gelatin with electrolytes and long chain sugars. The best thing about them is that they're sticky, so you have to crew rather than swallowing quickly. This is important when your working hard and breathing through your mouth. You don't want your calories/fuel to fall out of your mouth, and you don't want to choke either. Either is a serious bummer.

(Left is Marjorie, a mentor; right is Michele, a teammate). I made a serious error in judgement however. The particular flavor I was consuming contained caffeine from green tea. Two huge no-nos to those of us on blood thinners and with arrhythmia issues. I felt great. I was pushing and pushing and every minute felt I had another 50 percent to spare. And it was a monster ride. We rode in a paceline and each member was in the pull position for 100 rotations, then we fell to the back and pushed. This was an important lesson for me to learn, because my first time in the pull position, I went for 18 minutes. Too long if you're going to finish two centuries in two days. It's absolutely stunning how much energy it takes to pull and how easy it is to follow along. When your 100 rotations (of the right pedal) is complete, your teammates check for traffic, give you the signal at which you move to the left and fall back. The team continues at the same pace. Unless you're me, in which one takes this as the signal to speed up. This only happened a couple times. Enter the caffeine. When we got back, I had this strong feeling of euphoria. I was ecstatic and excited about having successfully completed the ride and learned all these new techniques. That's when I discovered the truth about where this euphoria was coming from, and I knew I was in for a rough night.

(This is Priscilla, one of our coaches). When it comes to stimulants, I keep myself absolutely clean. In the past, one cup of Starbucks coffee mistakenly caffeinated, sent me to the hospital for a cardiovert. One would think that any caffeine would have been used up during the ride, or eliminated throughout the remainder of the day. Not in me. The excitement and false sense of wellbeing continued continued late into the evening. I slept for about 60 minutes and woke up to a racing heart rate (~100 bpm). It took about 90 minutes for this to go away before I feel asleep, but I really thought I was going to head to urgent care, rather than to Mercer Island for the half-marathon. The outcome of this story will be revealed in my next post.

(This is Rebecca, a mentor). Beside learning how to really cycle yesterday, I learned that I was going to have lots to think about during the ride to Portland. For instance, counting my cadence, looking forward for navigation, looking forward for hazards, hand signally for directions and hazard, maintaining a consistent pace, and figuring out which had signals to use. For example, there isn't a hand signal for dead recently deceased opossum, 2-week old dead opossum, or opossum smear. Nor are there signals for bad smells: 'man your diesel exhaust is killing me,' or 'gag me, it's a dairy.' With jobs to do, the ride was over very quickly. We have a great team, and we work very well together. I'm enjoying this experience so much.

This is my friend Sophie. We commute together. The Lance Pants are my new cycling shorts I purchased from the Livestrong (www.livestrong.org) foundation. I'm wearing a pair of running tights over them until the weather turns warmer. I nailed the attire on Saturday. I wore a long-sleeve cipolline (wicking fabric) under my TNT jersey, and my light REI jacket, with my ear warmers around my neck. Sophie let me borrow her beanie, since I forgot to bring mine. I had no heating issues whatsoever.

Okay, now a word about fund raising. My total has stalled at $450, with three weeks to go. I really blew it by not back checking the URL one last time to make sure it functioned. So, far the Brouwer (three donations) family is kicking the Gibbons' (one donation - Thanks Lana!) butt. Bookmark this correct URL: http://www.active.com/donate/tntwaak/MamieBrouwer I have another 35 letters to go out and I'm having post cards made for reminders. Remember, you don't want to get a post card. Time grows short. More to come. I haven't told you about my new bike......