Today I rode my bike down to the river and did a 75-minute recovery paddle. I ought to ride my bike down there more often, but it seems to require just enough advance planning that I tend not to. One of the nice things about keeping my boat down at the marina is that I don't need my car to carry it down there every day. And now we've even got bike lanes on North Parkway, the main route from my house to the marina. So we'll see if I can start a habit with today's ride.
The other day I mentioned that I had "bonked" a couple of times in Vicksburg. Most canoe and kayak racers know the meaning of that expression, but for anybody who doesn't I'll elaborate a little.
"Bonking" is the same thing as what marathon runners call "hitting the wall." As this Wikipedia page explains, it's "a condition caused by the depletion of glycogen stores in the liver and muscles, which manifests itself by sudden fatigue and loss of energy."
Basically, an athlete who has bonked is physically unable to compete any longer, and must redirect his or her efforts to simply getting to the finish line or, in more extreme cases, to surviving until the necessary help arrives. The race is not necessarily over for a bonked athlete; like I said in my post last Saturday, I had built big enough leads in those Vicksburg races that I was able to amble to the finish line before being caught by another paddler. But if that athlete is in a tight race with a competitor who has not bonked, the chances for victory are over.
The nice thing about those Vicksburg "bonks" is that they happened with only about a mile to go in the race. On four occasions I have bonked with much greater distances in front of me. My first "bonk" in a canoe and kayak race occurred in December of 2001 at about Mile 9 of the 12-mile Captiva Classic off Captiva Island near Fort Myers, Florida. The second happened the following summer, with maybe six miles to go in a 22-kilometer (about 13.7-mile) race in southern Ontario. The third came in May of 2009 around Mile 27 in a 35-mile race on the White River near Allison, Arkansas. The fourth occurred last summer just over half way through the 18-mile Chicago Shoreline Marathon on Lake Michigan.
The reason I remember these episodes so well is that each of them was keenly unpleasant in a very memorable way. Certainly the physical discomfort was considerable, but the psychological part of it is what I really remember. Each time, the thoughts going through my mind were of utter despair. As I limped along through mile after endless mile, with paddlers I had left behind hours before cruising past me, I emitted silent whimpers of self-pity and cursed my decision to enter the race in the first place.
At the turn of the century I was still new to open water/marathon/surf ski racing and hadn't really done any races longer than the three-mile Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race. So in the Captiva Island and Ontario races, bonking was a result of my inexperience. I took no fluids, not even water, in the boat with me. I have since learned that a participant in these longer races must ingest something in-race to extend the limit of his glycogen stores. Some people actually take solid snacks in the boat with them--fruit, trail mix, energy bars, stuff like that. I don't like to chew solid food during exercise, and I personally think that "Gu" stuff is disgusting, so I stick with liquids, usually some gatorade diluted with water in a camel back bag.
With these libations on board, I went the next seven years after that Ontario debacle without bonking in a race. Then, in a moment of temporary insanity, I decided to enter that 35-mile race on the White River. Even with my standard mixture of gatorade and water, I just couldn't last. The lesson I took from that experience is simply not to do races that long. I don't enjoy them. I do not share the opinion that a longer race is a more worthwhile race. If you like to spend a third or more of your day sitting in a boat hammering away with a paddle, that's your prerogative, but ultra-marathon events are not my cup of tea.
In Chicago last August, I was victimized by both my own tactical errors and simple bad luck. I went out too hard, stubbornly trying to hang with guys who were out of my league, and then my camel back let me down: about a third of the way in, I looked down and discovered that my tube was dangling in the water, and the bite valve had come off and all my fluids had drained away. I was already struggling by the time I reached the turnaround point, and the bonk I knew was coming hit me with a good eight miles to go. It was my worst bonk ever. I actually stopped to beg water from a safety boater, and later stopped at a beach just to stand up for a few minutes. I did eventually limp across the finish line, but for all practical purposes I was a "DNF" in that race.
Anyway, I hope the reader has learned something from this description of "bonking" and my personal experience with the phenomenon.
No comments:
Post a Comment