Internal Mono(b)log

Today’s ride was a 3 hour, MAP (max aerobic power) heart-rate zone 3 ride.   Not having really planned and not knowing where to go, I did the lakeshore toward Burlington route that I’d previously done.  It’s a good ride, with generally good roads and generally good traffic.  I forgot to start runkeeper on my phone until I was already part way back, but here’s a view of a snippet of my ride @ runkeeper.com (add about 5k out on lakeshore from the where I started recording and turn the route into an “out and back” (rather than just “back”) you get the full picture).

On this ride, I’d planned a nutrition experiment: In my speedfil I had just water, in each of 2 waterbottles I had 1 packet of HornetJuice and 1/2 scoop of Carbo-pro. For primary fuel, I had a flask of Hammer Gel Espresso and for electrolytes (this is the real experiment part) I used SaltStick salt tabs.  Because it wasn’t super-hot and I didn’t feel like I was sweating a lot, I decided to do 1 tab every 45 minutes.  Spread the 2 waterbottles evenly over the ride, and drink water generally when riding.  This is a change from my normal protocol of 1 HornetJuice, 1 Carbo-Pro and 1 scoop of EFS or other electrolyte sport-drink.  My thinking is that this approach allows me to hydrate without electrolytes or fuel.  Generally, this protocol seemed to work pretty well.  Definitely an experiment that I’ll continue to work with.

I also made a discovery on this ride – completely unrelated to the nutrition protocol experiment… well, maybe not completely unrelated… Ok.. on with it:

I ride, when training, with bib-style cycling shorts.

They are super comfortable and I love the feel of my Sugoi Bib shorts: they’re so comfortable and padded just right. But!  When you need to pee, and you don’t want to take off your jersey, and the shoulder straps, and pull down the shorts (and like today, sometimes there just isn’t time!) a much easier way to approach the problem, and sorry ladies, this probably only works for guys, is to pull up one of the legs until you can access your plumbing and pee through the stretched out leg hole.  So simple and efficient 🙂