A Tale of a Bonk

The Bonk. The most feared sensation of any cyclist. It's basically the body telling you: "I have no calories to burn." And your mind telling you, "Legs you must move! We still have more to go." After a hard VO2 workout yesterday, I was eager for the 30min threshold intervals today. You say, 30minutes! Yep, we all have those workout that we like or prefer. For myself, I would rather go all-out for 30 minutes up mountains or into the winds than go for 2min max efforts. Call me weird, but there is something about long threshold pedal turning that I prefer. I kind of get a high from finding that intense zone just below blowing up. yeah you are exhausted at the end but the endorphins that are released make up for it. which is what all endurance junkies like myself seek. My first interval up Left Hand Canyon went well. I felt real good through 25min then the pain started setting in. The wind made it a little difficult with fluctuating power efforts. I have been striving in all of my interval workouts to have positive concavity in my power curves. Yep, I'm getting mathematical on you all. In all my training over the years, I have always started out hard and power has declined. In races, the one with the strongest engine at the end typically wins so I'm hoping my training will pay those benefits. Now after the first interval, I did a 20min recovery spin. As I began the 2nd interval, that dreaded feeling set in. The shakes, the feeling of "ohh sh** things aren't good." My body saying, "yo why didn't you feed me some fuel?" Yep, I bonked, and bonked hard. Well, I pressed on like any aspiring top-comp rider would. It was definitely a hard effort. Still managed a good effort just 6watts off my first one. On the return ride home i had a banana but I had already gone past the point of no return. Those tailwind kms home were some of the toughest tailwind kms. But I made it b/c i'm writing about it now.

When i go out training, I have always been the one to pack less food than I probably should. This has lead to many bonks in my day, the most brutal was the bonk on le Col du Galibier which made me conjour thoughts that I might not make it up those last 3kms to the summit. The next worse is probably the final climb up Vaujany in the Vaujany race. I was killing it the whole way up to the base of the final climb. But I hit the wall hard. upon finishing I just sat down at the table. I wasn't interested in food which is how bad the bonk was. All I ingested for the next 30 minutes were cokes and more coke. I probably drank 2L of coke before I settled for some food. no the ideal way of a recovery drink but practicality goes out the door when you are in post-bonk. I have ridden with a lot of people and i think that most take on too many calories during training. The combo of energy drinks and bars usually leaves people with a net zero caloric balance. Meaning they ingested as much as they digested in work. Bike food gets old which is why I prefer to leave it for the racing. I have always believed that if you train at caloric deficits, you teach your body to survive longer and use the fat as fuel. B/c in a race, you might not get that feed so its important you know how it feels to be at the end but still know you can go further. Its going to hurt but its still possible. So what do i do to stay fueled? Well, i only drink water. in the summer months, I will take a low-calorie electrolyte drink b/c thats all you need. Electrolytes will keep you from cramping. no need for liquid calories in training. For solids, i prefer bananas. They are like the perfect bike food b/c you can safely trash the peel and know that it will decompose in two weeks. no trash in the back pockets. i also like bringing some carbs in the way of homemade granola/energy bars. usually pretty dense but not all sugar like most energy bars. in fact, tonight I made some banana-maple-walnut scones. They should be awesome on my long endurance ride tomorrow. Rolling out with a Vitamin-Cottage rider. Shawn hooked us up. Hopefully it will open some doors to teams for me or atleast he will be someone else i know here.

Onto other notes, I start work on Friday at Full Cycle(http://www.fullcyclesbikes.com), a velo shop here in Boulder. I'll be a sales guy. So if you need a new bike, come and see me. i will set you right.

Chow,
Matthew
P.S. here are some pics of the p/1/2 crit on sunday at the Denver City Park North. Yeah, just a sunday crit with toyota, rock racing, thf realty, jelly belly, vc...check out thamilton. I've seen him a few times around town.