Saturday's 7 hour workout recap

Yesterday was a beautiful, clear, crisp winter day in San Francisco with temps at 45F. Mayor Gavin Newsom and I passed each other on our runs. And I saw the incredible Zepplin float quietly over the bay. I made it through the first three hours of Saturday's workout without eating for 17 hours prior. The coaches wanted us to experience what bonking felt like in a controlled environment. During the first three hours, we were only to drink water. No food or electrolyte drinks that had calories (like Gatorade) were allowed. Non-caloric electrolyte tablets were fine. Lorraine shared her Endurolytes with me.

In endurance sports, particularly cycling and running, hitting the wall or the bonk describes the condition when an athlete suddenly loses energy and becomes fatigued, the result of glycogen stores in the liver and muscles becoming depleted. Symptoms of depletion include general weakness, fatigue, and manifestations of hypoglycemia, such as dizziness and hallucinations. I experienced hallucinations, weakness & fatigue at the San Diego Rock N Roll Marathon at mile 19. When I started freaking out mentally, it took me awhile to recognize that I was hitting the wall but once I knew that, I knew how to take control.

The first three hours of my workout yesterday was brick workout where we would do spin drills on our trainers for 40 minutes then run for 20 minutes, repeated three times. I had a beautiful view of the Golden Gate Bridge for my whole spin workout from the Presidio. I also had great views of the bridge, Alcatraz and the San Francisco skyline as we ran along in Crissy Field. For the first repetition, I felt fine. During the second repetition, my stomach growled a lot and I had a harder time keeping up my cadence. Midway through my third rep, my left foot and calf kept getting cramps. Coach said that my electrolytes were imbalanced.

Finally, noon came and we had a 15-minute break to eat lunch. I had a peanut butter & jelly sandwich, mini-blueberry bagel, tangarine and Gu2O. I felt a lot better.

The next two hours, we practiced bicycle drills and I learned a lot. The first thing that Coach Wayne had us do was to remove our front wheel and spin it between our hands and turn the wheel to the right and left while it was spinning. I felt the wheel wobble and get unstable. The same feeling I get sometimes riding fast downhill around curves. Coach Wayne explained that the front wheel is like a giant gyroscope and that most people on bikes steer incorrectly. He had us do the same drill again, by loosing the grip on one arm. So when I turned the spinning wheel to the left, my left hand grip was just merely there to hold the wheel up, while my right hand pushed the wheel to turn to the left. The wheel turned without a wobble! He had us hold the wheel so we could actually feel the difference. Afterwards, we practiced counter balance steering on our bikes so that we could react quickly if we had to avoid something on the road. We also did slow balance drills, practicing balance and turning on a short obstacle course. I wasn't successful at this.

Coach Dave ran us through several nifty bicycle drills.
1) Water bottle hand-off. During the cycle event, we will be actually handed bottles as we ride through the aid stations. He taught us to make eye contact, identify by shouting out to the aid person, grab the bottle and then say thank you.
2) Setting down water bottle on ground without it falling over while moving. This is suppose to help us focus on several things at once - balance and what's ahead
3) Picking up water bottle on ground while moving
4) Riding hands free
5) Riding and lifting front wheel off ground to avoid running over objects if you can't steer to the right or left.
6) Riding and lifting back wheel off ground
7) Riding and lifting both wheels off ground
8) Putting fallen chain back on while still riding bike (this was the second best thing I learned yesterday since this happens to me once in awhile)

The last hour was dedicated to run drills and strength training. Strength Captain Doug introduced us to the TRX suspension trainer, which uses one's own body weight to build strength, balance, flexibility and core stability. We also did 90 reps of fire hydrant, 5 minutes of bicycle crunches, 75 kneeling leg presses, 30 dipping birds, 5 minutes of crunches, and 60 lunges with trunk rotation. Needless to say, I can feel the muscles in my core today.