Seagull Century Ride and the Art of Long Distance Biking

The above picture shows my husband David at mile 85 of the Seagull Century’s one hundred mile bike ride for charity. We dedicated our ride for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society again, as my mom was diagnosed with Lymphoma before she died last year. This last stop was the “grand finale” rest stop where the riders were served different kinds of pie and vanilla ice cream. We sat on the grass listening to live music from a local band, massaging our painful feet for a few minutes before getting back on the bike for the last 15 mile-stretch back to Salisbury University, our starting point in the early morning.

Last year, at the 85-mile stop, David didn’t look this relaxed and happy. He had severe abdominal cramps and couldn’t eat any pie. He almost gave up and was thinking about riding back to the university in a van with the riders who could no longer tolerate the one hundred mile journey. David figured out later that he did not drink enough during the ride. Dehydration can manifest as severe cramps in other parts of your body besides your legs. Electrolyte imbalance, on top of dehydration, can be deadly. As a rule of thumb, from my training for the three marathons, after the first hour of exercise, one should start drinking an “electrolyte replacement” fluid such as Gatorade. There are “vitamin” water bottles on the grocery shelves now a day and you just have to compare them to Gatorade to see if they would be as good. Some people, including me, do not find Gatorade very tasty. I drink it because I know I need it for long distance sports. It’s important to drink at least 8-16oz of sport drink for every hour of intense exercise.

Food is another critical component to refuel your body, as gasoline is to a car! At every 20 mile rest stop, David and I had protein or cereal bars, tucked in our bike shorts’ pockets. I wore a tennis shirt with three back pockets for balls and I used them to store my bars for the road. At the 65 mile rest stop, we were given bananas and orange slices, besides pound cakes or peanut butter sandwiches. We refilled our bottles with Gatorade at every stop. Remember, after an hour of intense exercise, Gatorade is important to avoid cramps later on. A fanny pack is useful on long trip as it can store many items including cough drops and hand wipes.

After two Seagull Century rides, I can now give you some basic advice on biking. It’s such a pleasant sport where we can enjoy nature and get a good workout. To get started, find a good bike store, as in our case, the “All American Bike” store in Damascus, Maryland, whose owner, Matthew, won numerous national cycling titles in his younger years. You need someone knowledgeable like Matt to explain the physics of biking and why certain bikes would be more efficient and comfortable for you. At our age, my husband and I agreed we should invest in a very good bike to give us comfort on the road, as it is our “home on the road”,even though good bikes can cost quite a bit of money. Bikes, as you know however, should last for many years. Biking outfits and clipped-on shoes help you bike more efficiently and make the long rides more comfortable when it comes to the physics of biking, but they are not absolute requirements. We saw a rider wearing regular T shirt and shorts, and who biked the entire trip wearing crocs! We did not know what time he started out, but he seemed to be nearly as fast as everybody else on the road and looked comfortable. I also saw another lean rider in professional riding outfit but who wore LL Beans sandals! Biking does not have to be an expensive sport except for the bike.

To practice for a long ride, you can pick a national park nearby, as in our case, the C&O canal. The path on this canal is flat enough for me and David to keep pedaling for hours without being tired. Several of my patients advised us to train up to 40 miles in order to finish a 100 mile bike ride, as a runner should be able to run 20 miles in order to complete a 26.2 mile marathon. I was questioning this advice but it worked for us last year. Our schedule was so hectic this year that we could only accomplish 25 miles for our longest ride. Yesterday, we made it, but I had to work harder mentally not to give up the last ten miles. As in a marathon, I started day-dreaming of a red pickup truck showing up to give me a ride to the finish line. Why red? I don’t really know, maybe mentally, I picked out a color that I wouldn’t have missed if the truck had really showed up! In a marathon, this day dreaming usually started for me at the twenty-fourth mile marker. Last year, it was at the ninety-fifth mile of the Seagull Century that I started visualizing the image of that red pickup truck, and this year, it was ten mile before the finish line! Like a child, I kept asking David who rode comfortably behind me:

“Are we there yet? Are we there yet? WHAT, all that time and it was JUST a mile? Are you sure your computer chip is still working? How could that be just a mile?” I was bickering.

“Your mind is playing games with you. That was a mile!” David calmly explained, as I desperately wanted to see the red pickup truck, not because of discomfort, but more like a mental fatigue of not knowing if we were riding into infinity.

The trick is to get distracted from the ride, as a woman in labor tries to think of something other than her labor pain. Her breathing technique is not an analgesic; it’s a distraction from her pain. Some riders were playing loud music on the road or talking to each other. Many rode in groups and it was very helpful for them to encourage each other to the finish line. Others, like me, started looking around. I found myself staring at the legs full of tattoos from a young rider, trying to figure out what they were. I followed him for blocks and finally caught up and passed him, just to realize his two legs’ tattoos were that of a tropical forest. That was at least four miles of my ride! David and I looked at people’s outfits, their bike colors, the surrounding countryside. We took in the beautiful colors of the blue sky, the golden and red leaves on some trees, and the golden brown color of the corn husks. We listened to the cow bells ringing from the families along the path cheering for us, or the birds chirping from the trees. We even talked about Tom Clancy who just died at 66 and wondered how he got ill. I thought about the young dermatologist Dr. Margaret O. who died of Leukemia several weeks ago in her mid-forties. I thought about another physician Dr. P., a pediatrician who died of breast cancer several weeks ago in her mid-thirties, several months after giving birth to her baby. Why did I think about all these dead people? Probably because I was appreciating being alive and riding through the beautiful Eastern shore on a perfect sunny autumn day. To think of those who passed, as people often asked me why I read the daily obituary column, is not to remind me that I too will pass. It reminds me that I need to live and not to waste time. 

To be able to do a long distance sport, you have to read your body like a Kindergarden book and recognize the simple “trouble” signals. If you have a cramp in your calf, get off the bike and stretch. If you feel dizzy, get off the bike and take a drink and rest for a few minutes before continuing on your journey. You want to ride for fun and not having to end up in a hospital far from home. Yesterday, we saw two very fit young men on the ground as the emergency workers put them on stretchers. At the 97th mile, we saw another fit woman kneeling on the ground with her head in her hands while her riding partner or boyfriend stood by, looking helpless and concerned. We saw the ambulance seconds later with its siren on and were sure it was heading her way. All these athletic young people in professional biking outfits probably were riding while not listening to their bodies. They probably were racing and not riding like us. Think of your body as your temple, listen to its preacher! 

Except for a quick fall at mile 97, when I tried to brake quickly to avoid an oncoming car as I tried to make a left turn, I came back safely. Everyone around me including David was gasping as my helmet hit the ground. I quickly got up, took a drink and turned left to rejoin David. My knee was sore as I realized it was the very same spot I fell on two weeks ago during my last training ride. Overall, I did well and almost screamed in delight as David announced there was only one more mile to go. I had to focus on the last one minute or so of this one hundred mile journey, as I navigated my bike into the narrow tunnel leading to the finish line. There were many spectators watching and cheering for us, and I wouldn’t want to fall off the bike in front of them. That would have been a grand finale that no rider would want to create!

I told David yesterday evening how I will not do another long ride next year. He told me that was what I said after my first marathon, before I changed my mind the following year and forgot the image of the red pickup truck at the twenty-fourth mile. David might be right because, today, I wrote to my neighbor Kelley and suggested the idea of riding with their sons and Sandy on tandem bikes for next year’s Seagull Century event.