Sunday, April 8, 2012

My Inner Geek

Ok 13 days to go and I have to tell you every time I think about the ride I feel a tad sick and I don’t expect that feeling to go away any time soon. As you know I’ve been off work this week and my mum and dad have come over for a holiday from Scotland so let’s just say the diet has gone to hell in a hand basket. Try as I might the allure of chocolate from Scotland keeps pulling me towards the cooler that arrived with them full to the gunnels of all our favorite sweets. I hasten to add it is no longer full to the gunnels and my bathroom scales have started to move in the wrong direction. I’m actually thinking of having a marathon binging session just so it’s all eaten and gone! Seriously I can’t stop! Every time I walk past that damn cooler I have to look in and open another bar or packet of something.

I have however managed to go out on my bike every day and I’ve been doing around 15 miles and I’ve started the couch to 5K training program so in my mind I can justify at least some of the candy. I have to tell you the couch to 5K is way harder than I thought it was going to be and after the first day my legs are killing me. I stupidly thought I was kind of fit! Well that was a lesson well learnt but as in biking I think every time I go out it should get a little easier (well I hope). I was thinking running is the way to go after the MS150 to keep up the weight loss. Maybe I’ll have to blog about my running or jogging escapades next, only I don’t know how funny that will be running is not exactly a laugh a minute. Mind you I never expected biking to be and we all know how funny that ended up.

This week I have tried to eat better… I mean besides the chocolate… and I have tried this drink called Nuun to restore the electrolytes because Smug Git thinks that that’s what made me sick last week, I was not replacing the electrolytes during the ride so what I will do on this week’s ride is drink water as usual and when I get to the rest stops drink the nasty Nuun and let me tell you it tastes nasty but if it does its job right I’ll just have to grin and bear it.

Friday – I’m not riding today, I’m going out for some pasta and I’ll eat half for lunch and the other half for my dinner. I’m determined to get it right this week the ride is too close to mess anything up. Tomorrows ride is in Katy and it’s a 7:30 start. I’m planning on riding 50 miles so it’s early to bed and let’s see what drama tomorrow brings. You know the best laid plans etc… I did what I said I would, ate half the pasta for lunch and the other half for dinner only something did not go down right and I spent the rest of the evening in the loo so I sent myself to bed at 7:30 feeling awful again. I’m not sure if the pasta did not agree with me or if I’m real nervous about the prospects of another bad ride but I’ll see how I feel in the morning.

Saturday morning and I feel great! Tummy is still a wee bit dodgy but all in all I think I can manage to eat my bacon and fried egg roll or as it’s known in our house “The Breakfast of Champions” (I didn’t have this last week and I’m sure that’s why it all went wrong) I also made some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for during the ride so I pack them up and put them in my back pocket for a little snack later yum! And so we set off to Katy.

There were lots of riders out today the weather was fantastic and I met up with a good friend of mine Helena. You might remember I rode with Helena once before when I left her behind because she had a flat tire (that’s the kind of good friend I am). Well today we are going to ride together so Smug Git got the chance to go ride at his own speed with Steve (the Don) oh I have never seen him so happy I had no sooner said “sure honey you can go ride with Steve today” and whoosh….he was off. Well ok then I’ll see you at the end.

Helena and I set off at a nice pace but I had learnt something new this week here is where I turn into a bit of a bike geek but bear with me I promise I’ll not stay geekish for long. This week I learned about cadence (and I spelt it right first time!) cadence is the number of times your peddles go round in a minute and mine go round between 75 and 79 the idea is to maintain this all the time you ride using your gears to help, ok geek bit over. I have been doing this all week when I’ve been riding so today was a great day to practice because Katy is real flat, and as I said we set off at a nice pace but I was not really working to keep up the cadence. We got to the first rest stop and I had my first PB&J sandwich and some yucky electrolyte drink and was raring to go. We set off and I was going to go for it! I can actually say I got into the zone and it was amazing! It was flat with no wind and I felt great and I got to the next rest stop in no time. Helena was just a little way behind but we met up again and set off together. I felt great and just got in the groove again but at this point the wind had picked up. Here is where it got harder to keep up the same pace but with a few gear changes I did not too bad. I got to the last rest stop with some energy to spare but Helena was nowhere to be seen. I did meet up with Smug Git there and being the great guy he is (oops! I just threw up a wee bit) just kidding! Sorry where was I? oh that’s right - being the great guy that he is he waited with me to ride into the end but there was no Helena. I have to say I was a bit worried about her but figured she had either missed the rest stop or SAGed into the end. We headed off to the finish and about 4 miles up the road there was Miss Helena cycling along! She had completely missed the rest stop - poor Helena, I know I could never do that I’d just cry like a baby all the way to the end! She would have to ride close on 25 miles without a break. She must have been shattered but again being the kind of friend I am I just rode right passed her (you know it’s not a race right?) but she made it to the end ok thankfully. I doubt she will ever want to ride with me again and who would blame her?

At the end of the ride today I felt great I could have at the very least did another 10 miles so I’m feeling a wee bit happier about the MS150 still nervous bit a little happier.

Serious bit…

I think I will just take this time to thank all of you who have donated to this very worthwhile cause I have raised just over $1500 dollars and I’m just 13 days away from the ride itself and I could not do this without y’all I have such great family and friends. It’s still not too late if you would like to donate even a small amount to help in the fight against Multiple Sclerosis.

Here is my link http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/izzi

Thanks for reading see y’all next week… love Iz

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