Solo or Group Ride?

Today I had my long ride planned in and I tried to hook up with a group ride organized by a local bike store. According to their website, it was supposed to start at 11am. Me, being new to the group, I'm not on the email list that notified everyone the time had changed to 10am. It reminded me of Heather's experience, when she had planned to ride with the group... but ended up doing a solo ride.

Triathletes, especially as diabetics, always have to be aware that things happen unexpectedly and change our plans. You have to be ready for anything and roll with the punches. So without losing a beat, I decided to go it alone today. In a way, I'm more enthusiastic about riding solo because it gives you opportunities to test different things like time speed, fitness level, bg testing on the bike etc. Still early in the season, I'm trying to find my pace and a comfortable speed for a full Ironman distance. Riding out and back on your own, you can really see the variances and effects of wind on your speed. When you're in a group the wind effect is diminished. Solo, you don't have to watch your position in the group so you can fully focus on your ride and heart rate, speed and cadence etc. Plus, riding in a group, you don't have control of the route, so you lose a little bit of that freedom to change things up spontaneously.

I've been playing around with variations on my bike. Just for practice, I often drop a gear to see how much slower or faster I need to pedal to maintain the same speed and compare the effort to determine which gear range seems more comfortable. Another little thing I do... I select the average speed setting on the bike computer and monitor it constantly. I find it makes me more aware of all the stop signs and u-turns and all the effects on average speed. For example, you're riding along and your average speed is 32km/hr. Increasing your speed for ten minutes to 35 km/hr might only affect your average by increasing it to 32.1.... meanwhile, if you slow down to 5km/hr at a stop sign, your average speed might drop to 28.8. It has really made me realize how much a quick stop for water can really affect your time. Even when you put in all that extra effort for those ten minutes... it has less of an impact than a slow down has.

Although you can't beat the camaraderie of group rides - you really need both. There is a lot of training and self-awareness that you can only master on solo rides.

Next week I'll get up an hour earlier and try to join that group again.

Annual Good Friday Ride

Since I've been back from camp I've been making more of an effort to connect with other triathletes in the area. There are two forums that seem to be working for me - Beginner Triathlete.com - which has some great discussions in the Ontario/Michigan area, and also a local forum talk-running, which is part of the Running Factory's website. This is where I learned about the Annual Good Friday Ride.

At one point this week, it almost became a Saturday ride - the weather predictions just weren't looking very nice. Ended up this morning to be around 30F and 18mph winds. Folks around here are just so happy not to see snow or rain, that I figured there would still be a decent turnout for our 9am start.

Normally, if I don't have 3 hours before the event I don't eat anything (just a GU before I ride). This morning however, my wife offered to make pancakes for me (really she was getting up to make them for my daughter and her friend who had spent the night). It's impossible for me to resist pancakes, so I had three, with some no carb syrup, half a banana, a cup of coffee and headed out. I took 2 units of bolus - less than I would take on a normal day. Before breakfast my BG was 6.3 (113).

When I got to the Running Factory I checked again and my BG was 11.6 (208). There were about 20 of us starting out and right from the start they set a good pace. We rode about 15 km (9m) to the Ciociaro Club to meet up with the rest of the group - another 30-35 riders joined us there. I checked my sugar again and I was 12.4 (223). Being in a large group at a high pace, I wanted to stay with the front group without having to check too often, so I wanted to be a little on the high side. So I sipped on Gatorade along the way.

Because it was a group ride and I'm new to the group (with a tri-bike), I always stayed at the back of the group. But as soon as I noticed that there was a gap opening between the top 8 riders and the next 4 riders, I went around and jumped the gap to stay with the leading pack.

We rode another 30 km (18.5m) to Amherstburg and stopped for a break at the Downtown Espresso Cafe. New to me and a very interesting experience - when we got to the coffee shop, my next opportunity to check my BG, I was at 21.4 (385). I haven't been that high in months - since I was first diagnosed. It sort of shocked me, but I decided not to panic. For one, I had no bolus with me and secondly I had just ridden for an hour and a half - I have to start coming down on my own. I decided to skip on coffee and not add any new elements to the equation. I just chatted with some of the other riders and checked again about 20 minutes later before heading back. To my HUGE surprise, I was 6.9 (124). I didn't know I could come down that much so fast. The initial reading might have been slightly spiked due to the few sips of Gatorade I had taken a few minutes before checking.

On the way back the whole group departed at different times in small groups. I was part of a 12 rider group and again the pace was set rather high - we were pushing 27km against 25 km/h winds. The pace slowed down a bit as we entered Windsor again and I checked my sugar once more at the Running Factory - 11.8 (212). I had eaten a gel about 7 minutes earlier, because I was starting to feel that I might be getting low - I was probably just fatigued.

All in all, it was a great ride and I made some connections to hook up on some more group rides over the next few weeks.

Tour de Cure

So I signed up today to ride the 100 mile event at the Tour de Cure on June 14th in Brighton, Michigan. I was planning on doing the Motor City Triathlon that day, but Tour de Cure is a great opportunity to raise some money for the American Diabetes Association. You can view my Tour de Cure page here.

The only thing about doing a fundraising event in the US is that any donations my friends or family make aren't tax deductible here. Too bad there wasn't a way to link the donations through the Canadian Diabetes Association - somebody should look into that.

I'm hoping we start getting some stable weather around here soon so I can get in some solid outdoor training. I met up with a group of local cyclists for a morning ride last Saturday. Once again, I was tricked by the sunshine and forgot to actually check the forecast. Underdressed seems to be a common theme for me lately. Thankfully I was offered a pair of women's gloves - which I eagerly accepted. We had a great ride and stopped for coffee at Tim Horton's back in Essex. I look forward to heading out more regularly with this group - it sure beats training alone.

Today's ride was a little on the windy wild side, but at least it's warming up. Is there really snow predicted again for next Tuesday? That's got to be an April Fool's Day joke. There's a large group of cyclists that does an annual Good Friday ride from the Running Factory out to Amherstburg and back. It's a nice 100km ride, so I'm crossing my fingers there won't be rain.

If you get a chance... please check out my Tour de Cure page... even a few dollars would help me reach my fundraising goal.