Karen writes: Last big bike ride before Taupo
I took annual leave on Friday and Kate and I met up at Clevedon for our last big training ride. Our bikes were loaded down with plenty of food, we had money to stop at one or more of the three shops on the 100+km route to buy more food and drink, and we were prepared for hot weather. Five hours later we were back. We had eaten all the food, successfully covered the distance and gotten hot and only slightly bothered in the process.
Actually it was a lovely ride, grinding up all of those huge hills heading out towards Hunua, racing along the flats at Kaiaua, and onto more huge hills to get to Kawakawa bay. There were smaller hills back to Clevedon, plenty of boats and trailers to dodge, and everywhere lots of glorious scenery. I was happy that there were no suspicious mechanical noises from the bike and nothing fell off it, and I made a valiant effort to stick to the new nutrition requirements. Well, except for the fruit and nut chocolate and bottle of coke at Kawakawa bay, and maybe the recovery mince and cheese pie from the deli after we finished at Clevedon (sadly the cafe had shut). On the ride, in addition to the chocolate and coke, I managed to make my way through two cartons of flavoured milk, raisins, bananas, gu gels, sports beans, low-fat fruit bar thingy and 2 1/2 litres of water. I realised at the time I was being a bit silly completely altering my on-bike nutrition all at once, how would I know which change was the cause if I had any problems? It worked out ok though, I felt fine apart from being a bit overloaded sometimes by quantity (the half hours come round quickly when you have to eat at least EVERY half hour). We convinced ourselves that we both felt better than when we last did this ride together a year ago, in spite of a lot less training, so we expect to be fine at Taupo in two weeks...yep...the power of self deception.
Actually it was a lovely ride, grinding up all of those huge hills heading out towards Hunua, racing along the flats at Kaiaua, and onto more huge hills to get to Kawakawa bay. There were smaller hills back to Clevedon, plenty of boats and trailers to dodge, and everywhere lots of glorious scenery. I was happy that there were no suspicious mechanical noises from the bike and nothing fell off it, and I made a valiant effort to stick to the new nutrition requirements. Well, except for the fruit and nut chocolate and bottle of coke at Kawakawa bay, and maybe the recovery mince and cheese pie from the deli after we finished at Clevedon (sadly the cafe had shut). On the ride, in addition to the chocolate and coke, I managed to make my way through two cartons of flavoured milk, raisins, bananas, gu gels, sports beans, low-fat fruit bar thingy and 2 1/2 litres of water. I realised at the time I was being a bit silly completely altering my on-bike nutrition all at once, how would I know which change was the cause if I had any problems? It worked out ok though, I felt fine apart from being a bit overloaded sometimes by quantity (the half hours come round quickly when you have to eat at least EVERY half hour). We convinced ourselves that we both felt better than when we last did this ride together a year ago, in spite of a lot less training, so we expect to be fine at Taupo in two weeks...yep...the power of self deception.
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| Pinky is back on the road...low tide at Kaiaua. |
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