Listen to your body

When you have been doing endurance sports for a while you learn something very important - listen to your body. When it tells you something you had better listen. For example, my wife and I did a 14 mile hike today. It's 7 miles with 2000' of climbing, lunch at the Angeles Oaks restaurant, then seven miles back. When my wife got to the restaurant she mentioned she was craving chocolate milk but she didn't order any so I ordered it for her. There must have been something in chocolate milk that her body needed. I don't know what it was and that doesn't matter. When the body speaks you must listen.

Of course, normally the body doesn't speak - it just whines. It's like when the wife is all mopey and you say "What's the matter?" and she says "Oh nothing". Then you spend the next two hours figuring out that she got a haircut or new shoes and you didn't notice. So when she actually asks "Do you like my new shoes?" you'd better reply "Oh they make your butt look tiny!". The same response works for haircuts.

That's what my body does a lot. I get an upset stomach and I have to figure out if I have drunk too much water or sugary drinks or caffeine etc. So when my body actually says "I want pizza!" you can bet I start looking for pizza. If I'm riding, that is. If I just spent the day sitting in front of the computer my stomach can crave what it wants - it isn't getting any.

So on an endurance ride it makes sense to listen to your body. Not only is it likely to be telling you what it needs, its also telling you what it wants. It's really hard to shovel in enough calories to match what you are expending so eating what your body wants is a good idea.

If I ride conservatively I can cover 100 miles in eight hours. That means I am expending 500 calories an hour but I've read you can only absorb about half of that while exercising. I suspect you ride and eat more efficiently with practice, but clearly it's difficult to avoid calorie debt. So if you eat what your body wants, you will eat more.

I remember riding a tough 200k down in San Diego county many years ago with Amber. We made an unscheduled stop at a 7-11 and while we were there this incredibly tall randonneur stopped too. It was the first time I had met Ron and he was having some problems. Something was aching and he was bonking and dehydrated. He was having a hard time. I looked at him and said "You're having some problems. The 7-11 has everything you need. What are you going to do about it?" Fortunately Ron is smart and he realized I wasn't being a jerk. I was making a simple statement. Your body has told you everything you need to know. It's up to you to buy aspirin, cookies, water, etc and solve the problems.

The simple ability to do that is a huge part of randonneuring.