BONK

I felt it.  I knew it was coming.  It was awful.  If you have ever been in the middle of any physical activity and felt all the energy leave your body?  Felt like your limbs weighed 500 pounds a piece?  Suddenly felt light headed, dizzy and tired?  That is how I felt on Saturday morning in the middle of my bike ride.  It was awful.

I was having a great ride.  Feeling confident, happy and ready to ride 34 miles.  That all changed at mile 11.  All the symptoms mentioned above happened.  I lost it.  I was dropped from the group of 40+ riders and was having a really hard time keeping a 13 mph pace alone, in a dead calm wind on a back road.  My pedals didn't want to work.  I was done, toast.

I made the decision to go back alone to the parking lot.  I knew that I had an 11 mile trip back by myself but what else was I going to do.  There was another group of cyclists coming but I was afraid that I was not going to be able to keep a decent enough pace to stay with them.  Meaning I would have been even further from the truck riding back alone on much busier roads.  So cycling alone was my only option.  I stopped at the stop sign at Lake Mary Blvd. drank my entire bottle of Heed, texted hubby to let him know that I was going it alone and I started out.  The start off from the sign was tough.  I was overheated, dehydrated and tired.  Mostly I was upset and frustrated.  But that feeling began to change.  Much to my delight about half a mile down the road my legs came back.  I was able to keep a 18mph pace alone and was feeling all the energy that I had previously had before the epic bonk.  I made really great time back to the truck.  I was proud of the effort that I put forth but upset at the same time for not doing that earlier. 

After having time to think and ponder what happened I think that I have (self) diagnosed the problem. 

1.  4 hours of sleep the night before.  Never a good thing for me when I am going to ride.  I need my zzzzzzzs.
2.  Not enough nurtrition.  I had a bagel thin and sip of coffee while on my way to the ride.  Surely not enough fuel for my body.
3.  Water, or lack there of.  I realized that I had NO water that morning before my ride and I had only drank about a quarter of the water in my bottles by mile 11.  The now famous mile 11 that I bonked on.

If I have just followed my own darn rules I am sure that I would have never had the problem that I had on Saturday morning.  What was I thinking?!  I will never do that again.