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A. Freye's 05' Update #2 |
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Written by Andrew Freye
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Sunday, 26 June 2005 |
It's been three weeks since I have given all of you an update on how my racing has been going. I had the weekend of June 12th off from racing. It was nice to be able to stay home and get some long 4+hr rides in and not have to travel anywhere. June 19th my 21st birthday was celebrated at the EFTA New England Championship Series race in Newport NH.
The course was a ton of fun with lots of single track. I did four laps each about five miles in length. I started out a tad slower then I normally do and waited until later in the race to push a harder pace. My plan worked out great! I caught up to the 1st place guy ¾ through the first lap and sat on his wheel for another ½ a lap. Then when the time was right I stood up push a harder gear and never looked back. I took the Senior 1 win by about 2.5min to Dan Valincourt of Saco. Dan had beaten me by about four minutes at Bradbury in the beginning of June, so that was a big moral booster.
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This weekend I decided to mix things up a little bit and try out an endurance event. I went over to the 24hours of Adrenaline race in Dalton, MA. BIKEMAN teammate John Burns and myself both raced in the 8hr solo event. The weather was far from perfect. It was HOT, humid, in the mid 90's in the shade, and did I say it was HOT? The race started out with a 600meter run to your bike before entering the 8-10mile course. Because of the heat hydration was going to be key. I wore my Camelback, which holds 50-70oz of water, and I was going through a Camelback plus a water bottle every lap. John and I were pretty much racing together, we both went through the check point at the same time after two laps, where we went back to the tent and got some food. After lap 4 I took a 15 min break and tried to get rid of a headache that I was starting to get. I thought it was from being dehydrated so I drank more and forgot to eat. Going into my 5th lap around 4 in the afternoon my headache started to get really bad. During the descents I had to almost get off my bike because any bouncing around was killing my head. My head felt like it was going to explode. About 300 meters from check point two (one mile before the start finish line) I had to get off and push my bike to the check point. There I sat down while the volunteers pored cool water over me. After lying down for about 40 minutes a medic came over to check me out. I didn't show any signs of dehydration (blood pressure and body temp were fine). When I told the medic I hadn't eaten much she knew right then that was the problem. Even though my stomach didn't feel hungry at all my blood sugar had gotten super low. Riding in that kind of heat and barely eating anything caused the migraine of a headache. I decided to finish lap #5 and go get some food before trying to get a 6th lap in before 8pm. After getting some protein into my stomach I headed out for lap #6 around 6:30pm. About one mile into the lap the headache came back and I pulled out of the lap and was done for the race. Even with the big set back at the end of the race I still pulled off a 4th place finish. I guess a ton of other competitors ran into dehydration problems and were forced to quit. You learn something new every day and this weekend I learned a ton!
Now that I know how important it is to eat even if your stomach doesn't feel hungry I will be in much better shape for Jay Peak Challenge, a 100k-mtb race at the end of July. July 4th weekend will be another weekend off from racing. Thank you for all of your support and I hope everyone has a great 4th of July!
Andrew Freye, Team Bikeman
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; "click to enlarge")
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