Hitting the Wall, and Then Some

    Ten days ago I am on a ride with my friend Dave.  We were going for 47 miles, with 2300 feet of climbing. All but 200 feet of the climbing was in the first 23 miles.  Ouch.  At the rest stop midway, I got 16 ounces of chilled orange juice, ate some energy chews and right before we left - for good measure - I squeezed out a few ounces of energy gel - something I had never eaten before. A colossal and soon to be a painful mistake.

Five miles later I am noticing some pain building low in my right side.  Five miles after that, at 33 miles, I tell Dave I have to stop.  "I think I have a kidney stone."  I was having a flashback to about 15 years earlier when I had to be hospitalized and have a stone removed.  I tried to throw-up, but didn't as I also didn't want that added pain.  Next I became dizzy and weak and wanted to lie down on the ground in the fetal position in the parking lot.  Instead, Dave got me inside into an air-conditioned hotel lobby where we stopped when I began to sweat profusely but the pain subsided a bit.  Fifteen minutes later as Dave rode back to get our car, I was checking golf scores on my phone.  No kidney stone.

The culprit? Probably an acid stomach and a reaction to the suicidal dose of sugar I had put into my system. Moral of the story?  Don't experiment on nutrition when out on a long training ride or run.  Water works every time.  If I had wanted to have a bit of sugar to add to that there were safer choices, choices that I had made before like a mild solution of Cytomax or maybe a few (like 2-3) energy chews.  Other than a headache a few hours later I was fine.