24hrs of Mental Training

Well, just a little update before heading to bed.  This weekend was the 2nd Annual 24hr Bike-a-thon at the College.  It started last year in order to raise funds for the Soldier On Fund which was create to "contribute to optimizing the functional independence of ill or injured CF personnel or former personnel by delivering programs and services and facilitating and integrating opportunities that support their full and active participation in physical fitness, health promotion and sport." 

The event was well organized and pretty fun.  There were only a handful of us that were in for the full 24hrs as most bikes had a group rotating through.  One of those was Tony O'Keeffe who is heavily involved in ultra endurance events.  It was definitely a benefit to have him beside me to talk to and discuss the ins and outs of such an event. 

After a big week in Arizona, my plan was to take it nice and easy so as to not mess the rest of my training up by needing too much time to recover.  The plan was to take a couple minutes every hr to stretch and then change my shorts every 4hrs to alleviate any saddle sores.  The end result was 20hrs 6mins of riding on my Argon 18 E112 to a tune of 363.62km (not a bad total considering I wasn't going very hard).  It wasn't too bad considering that previous to this, the longest time my bottom end had sat on a bike seat was around 8hrs. 

The journey started at 7:00pm.

Not too long in to the evening, I wasn't looking too bad.

A little later on in the evening, I couldn't say the same thing.

24hrs is definitely tough but it is more mental than physical.  Aside from being physically tired which is a result of just not getting to sleep, the hardest thing was staying mentally strong and not giving up.  Around 4:00am in the morning, I went through a major rough patch and thought I would definitely need to curl up in the corner and get some sleep.  Unfortunately this lasted for about 3hrs which I found hard to get through.  Luckily it passed and I managed to stick at it.  I would definitely say this was extremely hard to do but it was worth it.  Aside from some tight muscles and a sore but, everything is pretty good. 

I took some videos so once we get those squared away we'll throw them on.  Until next time, stay focused, the human body can do a lot more than you think.  M