Sometimes I dream up crazy things to do. And then I do them.

Like yesterday.

As a part of my personal weekly milestone challenge I set myself, to do something that will challenge me each week, I needed to come up with something for Week 5 as I missed a week when I set my goals out at the start of the round.  (I need to update this list on here, I will do that soon).

So the high tech planning stages went like this:

Break

• Friday: Tried to think of something I could do.  Without too much thought behind it, I decided to cycle for 50km as this week’s challenge.  Didn’t know if I’d be able to manage to achieve it but I thought I’d give it a try.
• Saturday: Decided to do it on Sunday.
• Sunday: Did it.

The challenge behind it for me was that this is my cycling history:

See sprinkler, will refresh under sprinkler

• 2009: Started cycling again since being a kid.  Worked my way up over a few months to be able to cycle from 2km at the start, to 44km (my longest ride).  I had an epic 44km cycle that crushed my cycling soul and that saw me abstaining from my bike for the next 3 years.
• July 2012: Sat on my bike and rode down my street.
• October 2012: Rode 6km in my triathlon.
• November 2012: Rode 15km as part of #okr.

So, the plan to cycle for 50km was a challenge because (wow I’m loving bullet points today!)

• It would be my longest ride since the ride that crushed me – actually my longest ride in my life.
• The last time I attempted a massive ride (the 44km / 2009 one), it broke me.
• I am a really, really slow rider.  I’m talking 10-12km/h.  I have an old mountain bike, it’s hard to cycle when you’re so heavy, and I am just slow.  So it would take me a long time.

But as I said, I dream up these crazy things and then I do them.  With not too much thought behind it.  Which is sometimes a good thing, otherwise I may not do stuff like this.



Wish me luck!

 Anyway, I did it.  You don’t want a play by play, trust me.  There would be a lot of whingeing about sore butt’s in there.  So in summary:

• 5:30am: Arrived in New Farm Park in Brisbane and cycled 7km.
• 6:30am-7:30am: Santa/supersoakers themed boot camp.  Best boot camp ever!  I worked so damn hard and LOVED it and then we had a massive water fight with water balloons and supersoakers!  It was so much fun :)
• 7:30am-10:15am: Meditation, breaky/coffee/chat with boot campers.
• 10:15am: Back on my bike to do the last 43km.
• 5pm: Finished and left New Farm Park.

It was a long day.  It was an extremely hot day.  I tried to stay hydrated but should have had more water with me.

• 1-7km: Pre-boot camp, it was fine.
• 7km-20-ish km: Not too bad, not much pain.
• 20-40km: Pain began, struggled with my stamina – it was soooo long.
• 40km-44km: Over it but kept pedalling.  In so much pain – hands, back, butt, knees, everything was sore.  Mind games commenced.  I turned off my music and turned on 12WBT podcasts.

• 44km-47km: Fierce tears.  I was impressed I hadn’t cried until now.  But I was over it.  I’d started exercising about 11 hours earlier and I had had enough.  I was berating myself for  both dreaming up this crazy challenge and for being so bloody determined all the time to never give up.  Everything was screaming – my whole body, my mind, my eyes and even my bike.  I was so slow but I kept pedalling.
• 47km-50km: The hardest 3km of my life.  The mindset I had to push through to get through these 3km was enormous.  I had some cyber support from a few girlfriends and held onto that.  There was no way I was pulling out now.  But I wanted to like nothing else.  I had nothing left in the tank – I was drained.  But I did it.  Because I wanted to challenge myself.

This 50km was not about the exercise, or about the calories.  It was purely about pushing myself to my limits and proving to myself that I could do this.  And I achieved that :)  In saying that though, there is no way I’m doing an epic challenge like that and not having stats to prove it! ;)  So my stats were:

• 50.1km cycle + boot camp

• Total time cycling minus all breaks: 5 hours 37 minutes
• Total time actually exercising minus all breaks (including boot camp): 6 hours 31 minutes
• Total time from start to finish of #CrazyExercise: 11 hours 30 minutes
• Calories burned: 3647 (I paused my Polar each time I had a break so these were actuals)
• Personal satisfaction gained: Immeasurable



After

 I don’t know how I did that.  I don’t recommend it to myself again – well at least not for a while.  It was a long time to be out in the sun, pushing not just my body, but my mind.  My limits were reached. Most cyclists could get that done in 1-3 hours.  It may have been silly to do that, or to do anything for that long but I ended up ok.  Although last night I was a bit rocky on my chair and felt like I’d been on a boat.  And Tabata at boot camp this morning hurt.

But I pushed myself.  I set myself a challenge, and I did it.  And that’s what this whole story is about.

I’m so glad that this week’s personal challenge doesn’t involve exercise: reducing my Diet Coke – that’s gonna have its own challenges but at this point, it seems like Easy Street in comparison to yesterday. ;)

And this was only after boot camp

My view after I'd finished it: from the ground

Most fun boot camp ever!

Pumpkin seed break

My view from one of my breaks