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.