One week of touring and energy levels have dropped!

Thursday, May 24, 2012 - Day 8

We woke up to cooler temperatures and rain.  I snuggled deeper into my sleeping bag not wanting to get up and get wet.  James was a trooper and got up and got breakfast going.  We had purchased eggs and cheese at a local grocery while we were in McKinleyville, CA.  I was snuggled in my sleeping bag and all of the sudden a hand reached into the tent holding a wonderful cup of hot coffee.  Five minutes later it was back with a hot egg and cheese sandwich.   James is awesome.  I thoroughly enjoyed my wonderful breakfast and coffee, warm dry, and in the tent.  I finally dragged myself out of bed, got dressed and helped James pack up our gear and we headed north.

It rained for most of the time, Hwy 101 was busy and it didn't have much of a shoulder in places, and the traffic didn't seem to bother to slow down.  It was sketchy.  James found a back road that was parallel to Hwy 101 and we took it.  It had some rollers on it and I was really tired at that point.  Fortunately we had already planned to have a short day.

Hwy 101

Backroad

The back road we took came out on Hwy 101 again and it was really close to a convenience store.  This was one of those stores that has everything in it -- groceries, prepared food, milk, basic cleaning supplies, etc.  We were on a stretch of isolated highway and I think this was a place the locals got food items when their bulk purchases ran out.  I told James that my legs were beat and I was just exhausted.  I remember he asked me if my legs were tired or if my whole body was tired and my response was my whole body was tired.  He told me he could see the exhaustion in my eyes.

My body was craving sugar.  I've never had such a craving for sugar in my life.  I went into the store and purchased one of those single serving bowls of Fruit Loops and bought a quart of Chocolate Milk.  I poured the chocolate milk on the Fruit Loops and ate it.  James looked at me like I was nuts but asked how it tasted.  I decided I would never do it at home but it tasted really good at the time.  That wasn't enough sugar so I bought a package of Keebler fudge rounds and we both downed the entire packaged in 5 minutes. 


We left the convenience store and cruised to the nearest State Park -- Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park.  We passed through a town on our way but it was run down and I would not have wanted to sleep in any of the hotel rooms.  Prairie Creek State Park was really nice.  It was quite a ride to get to the hike/bike section and the showers were not close but never-the-less, it was a stopping point.  It is actually a really nice park.  It has majestic Elk that show up and hang out in the meadows in the early evening and morning hours.  There are signs everywhere telling the campers how to behave around them.  We set up camp and I immediately went to bed and slept really hard for 2 hours.  James in the mean time went exploring on his bike and found some really neat trails, beautiful country, saw several Elk and some really big slugs.  I've provided a preview of the amazing photos he took during his excursion.

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While I was asleep some bicycle tourers showed up and set up camp near James and my campsite.  I had a lovely conversation with them and we exchanged stories about where we had been, the good places to eat, good grocery stores, etc.  One of the cyclists was a female engineer who was doing her tour solo.  She started in Washington State and was heading to San Francisco and then taking the train back.  The other cyclists were a couple from Ithaca, NY who were biking from one daughter who lived in Seattle, WA to the other daughter who lives in San Francisco, CA.  Neither daughter rides and they indicated they thought they were crazy.  I learned that they had done a lot of touring before they had kids and now that their kids are grown and on their own they are beginning to tour again.  I think this means James and I will have plenty more tours in our future!

 

getting more creative with my camp stove cooking

I learned from this trip that it is important to have planned rest days where either the distance is short (in our case 25 miles) or don't ride at all.  While I was eating food, we were riding so much that it was hard for me to stay up with my energy output.  Eventually my appetite had become suppressed and I wasn't finishing my meals and my kcaloric deficit became greater.  I was able to sustain a good output for a couple of days but eventually my inadequate kcal consumption caught up to me.  That is why I had such an intense craving for the simple sugars.  My body just wanted to be fed.  The rest day was exactly what I needed and I was able to close my kcalorie gap.  In addition the food I ate above, I had a Coke and a Hershey's chocolate bar with almonds which ended up becoming a staple in our daily meal.  I also figured out that we were covering some big distances compared to our touring peers.  They were going 30-40 miles a day.  We were averaging 65 miles a day.  James called our touring "performance touring".  I believe it.

Total miles for the first week of riding:  470 miles.