Well I survived the day with minimal injury to myself and others. As I said in my last post, we were instructed to stop any intake of food after 6 pm on Friday night... prior to Saturday's 6 1/2 hour training day. I can honestly say that I did not cheat... even though I was tempted by all the yummy foods my coworkers were eating at our annual holiday dinner. I was famished the entire evening and even in my sleep.
The objective was to teach us how to evaluate our bodies ... to be aware of how we may feel if calories were low or depleted during our event. And how to prevent and or recover from the feeling of being "BONKED". During the first half of the morning we did 40 minutes on the trainer performing various drills and then ran for 20 min. This exercise was repeated 3 times. We were limited to only liquids and electrolytes as our intake. During the trainer/run session I didn't feel any changes until the 2nd run. My calves started to feel a little tighter as I ran but I pushed through. I finished the run and hopped on the bike for the 3rd and final session. It was at that point that I could feel a low grade headache starting just at the back of my head. Then during the final run my body just felt really cold. I wasnt sure if the temperature had dropped or if my body was starting to feel the effects of the calorie depletion. I have never been cold on a run.. if anything I have always felt too hot.. thats why I always run with only the minimum on.
Luckily the last run signified that the first half of the long training day was ending. We were then allowed a 30 min break to have lunch. I had never been so happy to have packed an actual cooler for myself. I just sat there in the parking lot of Sports Basement with all my yummy food.. I felt like I had won the Lotto.. pure contentment!
The remaining half of the day involved evaluation of bike skills and a session of core/strength training. I actually enjoyed the bike skills aspect. We had to do slow drive bys to pick up water bottles from the ground or just the opposite... to set water bottles upright onto the ground. We practiced switching water bottles from various cages on our bikes, handing off water bottles from person to person, riding with no hands.. we even practiced slow speed controlled skills. We were maneuvered our way through an obstacle course... attempting tight turns with minimal speed on our bikes. The idea was that we try t maintain control of our bikes as we followed the course ahead. I did the drill several time... once successfully, another time running over a few cones... and a 3rd time where I ended up just flopping over onto my side on the asphalt. It was a a pretty tame fall.. I was almost at a standstill by the time I fell over. I ended up falling in such a way that I jabbed myself in the ribs with my own elbow. It took my breathe away.. and all I could feel was a very sharp pain on the left side of my rib cage. I managed to recoup, catch my breathe and pushed myself through the rest of the day.
I still have pain but its tolerable.. I think I may have just bruised myself badly. Its really annoying because it slows my ability to follow the scheduled training... grrr. I have a Coached swim workout this evening... should be interesting..
**A teammate did manage to BONK. He was doing really well and then all of a sudden while on the bike he felt light headed, lost feeling of the muscles in his legs, and he was shakey and cold. The coaches recognized the symptoms and immediately had him stop and take liquids, electrolyte and food. He managed to recover and continue on with the rest of the training.
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