So I Accidentally Went for This Two Hour Ride

Or... I think I broke my crotch.

Or... Who knew I still had THAT in me?

Or... Sometimes it doesn't suck even when I'm an idiot.

Or... I heart endorphins.

Or... Hey, I CAN transition in under 10 minutes!

Or... I think I heart my new running shoes.

Or... Holy cow I sweat a lot.

I've got this friend training for one of those two day breast cancer walks, and she was planning a 9 mile training walk for Saturday. That day I had planned an hour bike ride because A) the weather was perfect, and B) I have a race in 7 weeks and haven't been on more than a 3 mile bike ride in 2 years.

Where I live the paths are pretty much all 5Kish loops in a forest preserve, so when she said she was doing a loop in a preserve and asked me if I'd like to drive down and come along I jumped at the chance to work out with some company and try a new bike path.

Now let me make this clear... this is the point at which I should have clarified how long the loop in the new park was.

I assumed she was going to walk a 5K loop 3 times. And that I'd be able to loop around it a few times on my bike, stop at the car for snacks, stretch at my leisure, and probably walk the last loop with her depending on how I felt. Because the tiny part of my brain that was working at this point did realize she was looking at a 3 hour workout, and I had no illusions about my ability to pull that off in my current state.

I assumed wrong. She was going to walk a 9 mile loop once. And this park is in an extremely urban kind of suburban area, so the trail wasn't contained in the safety of a single park environment. There were many crossings of many big, busy roads full of big, scary cars. And me with all the sucking at riding my bike - especially that whole starting and stopping bit.

Oh, and just for fun it turned out to be 9 miles of rollers with a few looooong, gradual, omgjustkillmenow inclines thrown in for good measure. But see it wasn't just 9 miles, because my friend was walking and we were in this together and I'd promised to circle back and check on her periodically.

The magnitude of my mistake only became clear to me as I was fully geared up and standing at the beginning of the loop, reading the map. There was no backing out. My options were to completely ditch my beloved friend or suck it up and see what happened with my sad, haven't spent more than 15 minutes on a bike in 2 years, out of shape self.

I sucked it up.

(And can I just say at this point thank gawd I compulsively over-prepare for everything?! While I had no idea I'd be embarking on a 2-3 hour hilly brick workout, I had packed enough nutrition and hydration for just such an ocassion. Plus, my friend is a novice and had brought - for a 3 hour workout - nothing more than a camelback half full of *shudder* tap water. So, I was able to meet both our needs with half a bottle to spare. Being OCD has its uses.)

I managed to make that 9 miles into 20. When she was at mile 3 I was actually on track to triple her mileage, but things went downhill pretty quickly after that. In that the trail starting being a lot of uphill. So it could have been a lot more, if not for my copious suckage. And stopping to cross at lights. And pausing to drink from my seat-mounted bottle so I didn't break my neck. And there was that surprisingly refreshing 5 minute break I took at mile 12 to stretch my poor, screaming quadriceps.

In spite of a few miserable moments, I easily found that happy land where my brain gets quiet and all I can do is focus on breathing and shifting. Mostly on shifting. (Silver, spinny. Silver, spinny. Silver, spinny. Silver... crap not again omg that's the wrong lever GAAAH. Seriously, you'd think after 4 years with this bike I'd be able to keep the shifters straight.)

Around mile 17 I was SO. DONE. I'd reached that point of discomfort where all you can do is keep gearing down, keep spinning and keep telling yourself what a great blog post it was going to make.

So I pedaled my half-bonking self back to the van, transitioned in under 4 minutes, grabbed a Clif bar and jogged back down the trail to meet her.

OK, so, I was only able to jog for about 5 minutes before my calves tightened up and cried uncle. But I jogged after 2 hours on a bike, and I'll take the small victories where I can get them.

My friend held a killer pace (she pulled off the 9 miles in about 2:40) and I met up with her pretty quickly, so I only ended up doing a 1.5 mile run leg for the brick. But it's all good, because I still got to log a brick on the books.

And I got to spend a few hours afterwards in loopy, giggly endorphin land, which always rocks.

By the numbers...

miles ridden: 20
hours on bike: ~2
mph I need to improve to be even close to IM time cut-off: 3
miles wogged: 1.5
minutes wogging: ~20
minutes stretching: 20
times I seriously considered ditching my friend: 1
shot blocks: 6
clif bars: 1
ounces of Nuun: 40
ounces of Water: 24
of times I had to pee: 0
burritos as big as my head devoured post-workout: 1
mg of ibuprofen ingested before bed: 800