Preparation for the 2011 Ride for Mike continues. We’re counting down the days with 5 more days until launch! Still, got plenty to do, but everything is coming together.
Last night I worked some more on the bike. My chief mechanic, John James at Sunshine Cycle Shop, gave the bike a thumbs up in the morning. I’m pretty confident in the Felt AR.
I did make some changes. After Phil’s comment yesterday, I decided to go back to the aero wheels. I also installed my lighting system.
The lighting system makes me laugh. It is a dual light set-up that is intended for mountain bikes. The battery is so large, you have to put it in your bottle cage. The system also has a helmet mounted lamp that runs off a nicad battery you keep in your jersey pocket. However, when people see me coming down the road they are going to think a motorcycle is coming at them! And that is just fine with me!
The battery is supposed to last up to 3.5 hours. That’s plenty of energy for the time I’ll need lights. The question that has really been weighing on my mind is will my body have enough energy to keep my legs moving for the time I need to turn them?
Nutrition strategy
I’ve been doing more that a century every weekend for the past 5 weeks. One of the reasons for this is to get miles in my legs. Another reason is to test out various types of on-the-bike fuel. I think I’ve settled on what works best for me and a plan that will help give me the energy I need to not only make it to Charleston, but also to be able to recovery quickly afterward.
I’ve divided the ride into three sections. Each of those sections will be approximately 4 hours in length. I’ll be basing my fueling on that schedule.
Each hour I will consume a Honey Stinger waffle. I’ve tried all the other types of bars, but I find these to be the easiest for me to eat and they set well on my stomach. In the last four (or more) hours I may accelerate that time frame.
Between the waffles, I will suck on or chew the GU or Honey Stinger chews. I tried Shot Blocs first, but something about them just didn’t sit well with me. It could be the size and the consistency of them.
Obviously, I’ll be drinking water all this time. I plan on downing one to two bottles each hour. I will also be drinking a “meal bottle” mixture that combines Cytomax with a simple carbohydrate powder. Each of those bottles tops out at around 400 calories and the sugars in it should take the fast train to my muscles. The Cytomax will also provide me with some electrolytes – as will the chews.
After the first four hours, I will stop and eat a sandwich at Subway. Then it will be back on the bike with my predetermined routine. I do have a tendency to forget to eat like I should in the beginning of a ride. So, I’ll set the alarm on my Garmin to alert me when I am supposed to eat. Toward the end of a ride, I tend to not feel like eating. That is where Annette comes in. She’ll be there to encourage me to stick with the plan.
We’ll stop again in Orangeburg where I’ll eat another sandwich. Hopefully, it will be around 2:30 p.m. at that time. I’ll have four or five hours more to ride. If I have fueled correctly up to this point, I believe those last hours won’t be as painful. I’ll be eating to maintain my strength by that point. The most important fueling will take place earlier in the ride.
I can’t forget about the prep work though. Fueling will start a couple of days before the ride. Rest, hydration, and carbohydrates are the order. I need to be getting in bed early and sleeping well in the days before the ride. If you see me around a couple of days before, you will find me walking around with a water bottle in my hand. I’ll be eating pasta and other forms of carbohydrates as well.
The need for proper fueling was the most important lesson I learned from the 2010 Ride for Mike. I nearly blew it early on in the endeavor and it made some of those days much harder than they needed to be. I lost 16 pounds during that week long trip! There were several days where I rode through a bonk to finish.
This time, I don’t want to just finish. I want to finish strong.
