Chilly Hilly!

Today was my first official event of 2006! Of course, it wasn't actually a race, but instead an organized bike ride - 33 miles of rolling hills (and a couple of good climbs) around Bainbridge Island. It was supposed to rain all day - amazingly (an answered prayer!), the rain held off until the moment we were storing the bikes back in the van to go home.

I slept really poorly last night, despite going to bed early, not eating or drinking caffeine before bed, etc - it was just like any night before a race, which was weird, because this wasn't a race. We were planning on taking the first ferry over to the island, but if we missed it, there were lots of other ferries we could take. Plus, I knew I was a stronger rider than some in my group, so I didn't have to worry about falling behind. So I'm not sure why I was nervous.

The ride was really fun, though it was hard to ride with John, mostly because his blood sugar kept dropping too low all day. We didn't have enough food and drink to keep him where he needed to be! So there were some scary moments - like when I realized he was low as we climbed a hill together, then he refused to pull over at the top. I had to chase him at 33-35 miles per hour down this long grade, all the while sure he was just going to fall off his bike and die. Nice.

For me, I wasn't psyched that my average pace was around 12 miles per hour (which means with the ride before and after the official start and finish, I rode something like 38 miles, for 3 hours 15 minutes or so). But we were with a group, John was kind of slow, and it was important to me to be with him and enjoy the day together. He's got to get his blood sugar under control and get his pace up, though, to really enjoy the rides we have planned during the rest of this year!

So here's what I ate today:
Breakfast: Bagel and cream cheese, coffee with cream: 360 cals
Snack: Bite of scone, bite of some kind of bread: 50 calories
On the bike: Luna bar, 180 calories
On the bike more: Banana bread, 1/2 banana, brownie: 350 calories
Dinner: Bread, salad, spaghetti with cheese and sauce, chicken breast, spumoni: 1200 calories (?)
Beer! 224 calories (amazingly enough, calorieking.com has Fat Tire right in their database)

TOTAL: 2364 calories

Exercise:
Bike Chilly Hilly, 1900 calories burned

Calorie deficit: 1136 yay! That is, if I don't eat any more tonight