The holidays of 2010 came around and I weighed 240 pounds. Then January of 2011 came around and I weighed 240 pounds. I suppose I should be glad I didn't gain any weight over the holidays. I signed up for the Tour of Palm Springs again in February and this time, my son talked me into riding the century. The century! Holy crap! “Do you really expect me to ride 100 miles plus in one shot?” He said “Yeah, you should be able to do it, no sweat.” So we went up to Palm Springs again and I did the century.
But not without incident. In 2011 I’m told nearly 9,000 riders had signed up for the Tour of Palm Springs in 2011. When my son and I reached the first rest stop, we loaded up on the energy drink being given away at each stop. We did the same at the second stop right around mile 35. By the time mile 55 rolled around, I started to cramp up. Interesting, I thought, because I’d already ridden a bunch of 60 milers with no incident. I had to stop nearly every couple of miles to stretch out because the cramps were quite painful. I finally rolled into the 70 mile rest stop and found my son stretched out on the grass, with stomach distress. He’d been there for about half an hour and could barely move, except to run to the porta-potties. Curious, because he had already done centuries with no problems.
That’s when I discovered that the free so-called energy drink was really just sugar and water in fancy packaging. No electrolytes. We dumped our water bottles and re-filled them with plain water and started drinking as much as we could and try and flush out bad stuff. After a couple of hours, my son and I felt well enough to continue. Within a quarter mile I started cramping up again. I told my son to go on, and I called my wife (who had done the 55 mile ride and was finished) to come an get me. As I pedaled back to the rest stop, I felt so disappointed! This was one of my milestones and I really wanted to finish it. So I called her back and told her to go back to the finish line. I was determined to complete my first century. I still had to stop every couple of miles to stretch out the cramps, but I finally made it. My son had been running over to the finish line wondering where I was. I guess he was a bit worried that it had gotten dark and I still was nowhere to be found. I finished ninth from last and in the dark, but the kids cheering the riders at the finish line were still there, and it was unbelievable. I had done it. And at the time I never wanted to do it again. As we were driving back to San Diego, trying to keeps stretched out to prevent the cramps from recurring, I told my wife exactly that. It was so difficult because of the constant cramping and I felt like I had been run over by all 8,999 of the other riders out on the course. The next day, after analyzing my ride, I realized that I did one very wrong thing: I should never have tried a new drink in the middle of a ride. Had I stuck to my normal hydration routine, the ride would not have been too difficult. By the end of the day, I was telling my wife I wanted to do another century.
When I weighed myself a few days later, I still weighed 240 pounds.
