Base Gear

I love my base gear! But I get ahead of the story...

Sunday is a hardcore riding day. The only day that I have off from work and workouts to concentrate 100% on riding. And today was a big one. The longest ride I'd completed before this morning was 2 hours. That was last Sunday with 1 hour of Open Spin & 1 hour of instructor led Spin Class. I'd decided to add a half hour to my ride each Sunday until I hit 6 hours. I figure that I'm going to need approximately 6 hours to get from point A to point B each day during the Enbridge Ride to Conquor Cancer. The distance is 100 KM (65 Miles) per day. Gosh I hope 6 hours does it! I'll let you know if it doesn't!

The alarm went off at 5am this morning and oddly enough, I was awake before it did. It still took me a good 20 minutes to be out of bed and downstairs in the kitchen fixing breakfast. I'm still learning about sports nutrition (endurance sports nutrition specifically) but figured I couldn't go wrong with a scrambled egg cooked up with onion, mushrooms, purple barley, and cheddar cheese. I'm working to incorporate more whole grains into my diet (non-wheat whole grains). Currently Quinoa (white and red) and Purple Barley are favorites. My Camelbak holds 3 Liters (Litres) of water and today I figured it was a good day to test out the new nutritional supplement that I plan on using in June: Hammer Perpetuem. The label on the bag says Orange-Vanilla flavor, I say BLECH! It has a nasty flavor. Must remember to mix in some Orange flavored electrolytes in the future! Duly armed with this nasty concoction, 1.5 Litres of plain water, a change of clothes, and my best attitude, off I went to The Boxing Club - arriving at 6:30am.

I hit the bike at 6:40 after a quick stretch and began my first hour of pedaling for the day. Let's just concede the point that riding inside, in a building, staring at a mirror, is boring. That being said, Rod was there riding too so there was someone to chat with. Rod rides 10 minutes seated, 10 minutes standing (those are some looooong hills!). I'm not quite that talented yet so I chose a format of 10-15 minutes sitting, 2-5 minutes standing. The first hour went by fairly quickly and we were joined by 2 more cyclers (don't know their names yet though one was wearing a Boston Bruins t-shirt!!!!).

At the 1 hour mark I had hit 24.5 KM pedaled and it was time for a quick break. There are rumored to be pit-stops every 20 KM during the ride in June and I sure hope that's true. Back on the bike to start hour 2, my bum was feeling a bit numb so I switched up my circuits to 10 minutes sitting, 5 minutes standing. You pedal at a harder gear standing and so go a shorter distance than you do just sitting. The time flew by fairly quickly and before I knew it, it was going on 8:20 and I'd completed 2 hours of biking this morning. As I was THIS CLOSE to another 25 KM completed, I stuck around on the bike another 7.5 minutes to get to 25.6 KM for a total of 50 KM (31 miles) before calling it a day on the Free Spin.

But wait! There's more! Don't forget that I have a 10-11am instructor led Spin Class at The Boxing Club.... yeah, I wasn't done yet. :) As it was only 8:45, I quickly changed into dry clothes and headed the 1 mile home for some real food to supplement the ICK I'd been drinking for the past 2 hours. I quickly blended up a Lime, Banana, Pineapple smoothie with an additional ingredient this morning: Hemp Seed Hearts (I suggest you check them out). I figured my best plan would be to head back to the gym where I was less likely to sit and veg for a half hour and more likely to stretch and stay warm before the next hour long session. Once on the bike again (here's where 'base gear" comes in), we were instructed to pick a gear that is comfortable to ride at, where we could maintain at for 30 minutes at a time. I picked "10". From here on out, we would increase and return to base gear in 1 minute intervals, stepping up the gear by 2-5 gears depending on the exercise. Each time we came back down to base gear, I loved that gear more and more! It was a super ride with 5 other terrific gals and I look forward to doing it again next weekend. Thank you Ashley & Bobbi for co-leading this spin class today. It was a load of fun! 16 more KM added to wrap up the day at 66 KM (40.9 Miles) worth of spinning. PHEW! Now on to cooking dinner for the week but that's another post for another time...

Thanks for tuning in!