Listen To Your Body

19 July 2008

PART ONE: FRENCHTOWN

(For Tom's take on the day, and for more pictures, go to his blog entry)

Ah, yes, another ride from Frenchtown to a reservoir on a day that promises to boil asphalt right off the roads. At least I’m used to it now.

This one isn’t mine, though. It’s Michael H’s. He and Tom did this last year when Tom was scouting locations for his NJ ride book.

I spent yet another night not being able to sleep all the way through, and my guts are a little angry again this morning, but I’m really looking forward to this ride. Michael and Tom pick the best scenery.

I give myself an hour to get up to Frenchtown, and I need it. On Route 31 I’m stuck behind a line of cars following a Readington Farms tractor-trailer. This puts me in a good mood, though, because I’ve passed Readington Farms on my way to and from Oldwick. You can smell the milk being processed as you pedal by on Mill Road just north of Whitehouse Station. When I turn onto Route 12 I get stuck behind a massive piece of farm equipment on a flatbed trailer. There’s no way to get to Frenchtown from Lawrence without being stuck on a single-lane road somewhere, so even though I’m nervous about getting to the ride on time, I sit back, listen to my music, and enjoy the farms stretching out on both sides of the road.

I pull into the Bridge Café parking lot with ten minutes to spare. Tom’s car is next to mine. “It looks like it’s gonna be another death march,” he says.

“Yep.”

I run to the bathroom again, trying to get rid of whatever it is that doesn’t want to be in me right now.

We gather in the lower parking lot next to the canal. There are thirteen people here but I know only a few: Tom, Thom, Michael, and Glenn. There look to be a handful of strong strangers, too. You know the type: the leggy guys with no body fat and close-cropped hair that never shows from under the helmets.

Michael pulls me aside. He gives me some ride leader updates and then tells me not to be nervous. He scolds me for telling Marilyn that his rides are tougher than mine. I still think they are. Mine are longer, and a little faster, sure, but he puts in bigger hills, and more of them.

He gathers the group and describes the route. We’ll be going first to the Merrill Creek reservoir for a water stop, climbing the biggest hill before we get there. Tom says that he and I will be stopping on the hill for pictures.

Then we’re going to Bloomsbury for a real rest stop, and heading home after that.

We start the ride along the Delaware river, heading north. Coming south in a steady trickle are Anchor House riders, bound for Lawrenceville on their last day. Each group we pass we greet with “Congratulations!” I’m keeping my eye out for Irene and Henry.

We’re near Milford when I spot them, Henry in the lead. “Wall-E! Eva!” I shout, over and over again until they see who we are and cheer back at us. They made it. Those guys are tough. I envy their strength and endurance. I can’t get my head around a 500-mile week. I’d be a stressed-out wreck from January until the end of the ride.

A few miles later we pass a big group shouting to us. I recognize Bill at the end but I’ve completely missed Bob and Barb at the front. After that we see nobody but strangers. Glenn is calling out, “Congratulations!” to all of them.

Somewhere near the river there’s a small pileup as a handful of riders miss a turn. One guy falls and scrapes his elbow. A pick-up truck pulls up next to him and we see him walk to the house we’re standing in front of. The guy in the truck sends him inside and he cleans up. We munch on snacks while we wait.

I’m riding next to Glenn, whom I haven’t seen for a few weeks. He’s been a big help, whipping my resume in shape, giving me the inside story of life at BMS. I’ve found two job leads online and another through a Sierra Club friend. Glenn knows the group advertising the online leads and likes them a lot. He wants to give them my resume and to send it to HR next week while I apply online this weekend.

Now he’s telling me the story of his 94-year-old Floridian uncle who just got his drivers license renewed for eleven years without having to take a driving test.

I’ve lost track of where we are. Nothing has been familiar since we pulled away from the river. Now we’re turning onto Montana Road. Tom says, “It’s like two Lindberghs.” We will climb 600 feet in a few miles. The beginning isn’t much at all, but I’m not feeling quite right. My guts are churning. I don’t seem to have my usual power. I pull out a few Shot Bloks. They’ve always done the trick.

The road goes into the woods, dark and winding. We spread out and I find myself alone in the middle of the pack. Tom stops by a creek ahead of me but I want to keep going. “Send me the picture,” I call out as I pass him.

The road curves. I’m not feeling well at all. My heart rate must be too high. I feel nauseous, which only happens when I go over 180 beats per minute, and which doesn’t happen often at all. Should I push on? If I do, will I blow up and be unable to climb for the rest of the ride? It happened to me in 2000 in the first five minutes of a hilly ride and I don’t want to repeat that. Should I stop? I don’t stop on hills. I haven’t stopped on a hill since 2005 in Germany, and even then I was practically at the top. What the heck is going on here?

I look up and see another short, steep rise. My body decides for me what to do. I clip out. I wimp out.

Might as well get some pictures to document my defeat. I’m next to a stream hidden by undergrowth.



I look behind me. Two more people are stopped below me. I look above as another rider passes. My breathing slows but my hands shake as I take pictures:




Tom comes around the bend. I get back on the bike to time it so I can ride beside him as he passes. I’m ashamed that I’ve stopped. He says, “That’s about where I stopped last year.”

“Something’s wrong,” I tell him. “I don’t stop on hills. I think I’m gonna throw up.”

The rise levels out. I could have made it this far, I think to myself, and then I could have been okay. Now I’ll have to come back and do this hill again.

At the top as we gather to wait for everyone I’m still not feeling right. We’re a few miles from the Merrill Creek reservoir. I hang near the back.

At Merrill Creek reservoir we fill up on water. I take a salt tablet. Still shaky, I’m talking to one of the fast guys about overtraining. He tells me to check my heart rate first thing in the morning. I haven’t done that in a few years. I think I know what I’ll find. I’ve already looked up the symptoms and I have at least half of them: persistent infections, fatigue, insomnia, low workout heart rates, and gut trouble. It wouldn’t surprise me if my heartbeat were too high too.

I find a place to sit next to a pile of tall guys. We look down at the reservoir, listening to birds, catching our breath, talking about movies, rehydrating. Glenn hears a hummingbird. Michael calls us back to our bikes. I run to the bathroom one more time but I don’t feel any better.





Now we’re going down a long hill in the shade, and then up again to an open rise. At the top Tom has stopped for pictures. I join him.

“I’ve been looking at the blog photos,” I tell him. “It’s either very cloudy or super-hazy.” Tom says he doctors his pictures to remove the haze. I leave my cell phone shots the way they are. The sky is a blue-gray haze, but the cell phone just remembers the blue:








Tom says we have one more hill to climb before Bloomsbury, but it won’t be bad. We're going to Asbury. I stay in low gear at the back of the pack. Often when I rest like this I get my mojo back on the next hill. As for now I have no power and the nausea has been replaced by a steady ache in my stomach.

But I’m not in a bad mood. No way. It’s just too darn pretty up here to be distracted by anything like a stomach ache. I have no idea where we are. North of Route 78 somewhere, where the real hills are. Hunterdon County? Warren County? Which side of the Musconetcong are we on? If we crossed it I wasn’t paying attention. The hill to Asbury dives into the trees. The shade feels good.

When we reach Bloomsbury (Hunterdon County now), I’m hungry and nauseated at the same time. I order a PB&J, grab some iced tea, and find a seat. We take our time. Three of the fast guys say their goodbyes. As we get back on our bikes I tell Michael that even though I feel bad I’m not in a bad mood. “This is a beautiful ride. If you’re gonna be miserable, you might as well have good scenery.” I’m looking at the goldfish pond in front of the store. Michael says we have 20 miles to go. “It’s going to be a metric,” he says. That’s OK by me.

We have one last hill to climb to get out of the Musconetcong River valley. Michael has picked the gentlest way out, a road called Tunnel. It’s wide, flat, and shaded, a five-hundred foot climb that Tom says we won’t even notice.

I’m in my lowest gear just spinning. Glenn is next to me, telling stories from his days as a rest stop worker on the Iditerod. His brother, who lives in Alaska, is a musher. He has such interesting relatives. By the time he finishes his story I can see a stop sign sign between the trees. It’s just a sign that a stop sign is coming, but it’s a good sign nonetheless. I speed up a little but Glenn calls me back. We come up to another rider. I tell him, “I have to make a gluteal adjustment but I don’t want to stop pedaling.” He laughs over my choice of words.

We’re not the last ones up. I take the time to catch my breath. A wave of nausea washes over me. “I’m gonna throw up,” I announce. Glenn holds Kermit and I sit by the side of the road in pine needles waiting for the wave to pass. I chatter to distract myself. Tom tells me that we’ve climbed some big hills today. “Nothing I haven’t done this year,” I tell him.

“It’s hot,” he says.

“I did the double reservoir ride in worse, and there were more hills. Something’s definitely wrong. My stomach hasn’t been right for a week. There’s definitely something wrong.”

We’re waiting for Michael. “Should we call him?” I ask. Just then he pulls up. “I had a stomach cramp,” he says. Tom looks at me, “See? You’re not the only one.”

I stand up and immediately regret the decision. I join another guy leaning against a wooden fence. In a few seconds I reach for the bike.

It’s all downhill from here anyway.

We take one of Michael’s favorite roads: Sweet Hollow. He once said that any road with the name “Hollow” in it is going to be pretty. So far he’s been right because there’s usually a stream on one side of the road. Sweet Hollow dives down from Swinesburg (Garden State Stomp!) to Little York, under a canopy of trees, following the Hakihokake Creek down towards Frenchtown.

We turn onto Spring Mills-Little York Road and things start to look familiar. We’re in Double Reservoir Ride territory and we have to make a decision.

The plan was to turn down Javes, but when I’d tried to get on it in June one of the bridges was out. Tom says he got across the supposedly closed bridge only a few weeks ago. Michael decides we’ll try it, but if we can’t cross the bridge we’re not climbing all the way back up here. There’s really no other choice but to do that or wade across the creek.

Tom says, “I’ll lie down and you can ride over me. It won’t be the first time.”

“The first time it’s on purpose,” I clarify.

Javes picks up where Sweet Hollow left off, crossing tributaries and following the Hakihokake Creek.

The guy in the Lehigh jersey and I are first to get to what’s left of the bridge. “Tom better have some pretty long arms,” I say. There’s nothing but nothing where the concrete span used to be. “Let’s wade across.”

We lift our bikes onto our shoulders and walk through high weeds to the bank. The water
is shallow, the stream bed stony. The cold water feels good on our feet.

There’s a sign on a tree telling us that the creek is stocked with trout. “This water is very clean,” I announce. Tom says, “Not anymore after what’s washed off my shoes.”

I rest Kermit on some stones near a bridge support and take out my cell phone. “I’m getting pictures of this, Tom.”

He takes out his camera. “How often do you get to take a picture of a stream from in it?” he asks. I take pictures from under the steel supports.





Someone gets a flat while carrying his bike. Maybe he just hit the valve, but he changes the tube anyway. We stand in the shade, our wet feet cooling us off. Here’s the bridge from the downhill side.



The Guy Who Fell says to me, “You seem to have recovered.”

“That’s ’cause we’re going downhill and flat. If I had to push right now I’d probably fall over.”

We turn onto Milford-Frenchtown Road with only five miles left to go. I’m in the back of the line when I feel a second wind coming on. I jump to the front. Ahead of me are the Guy Who Fell and the Lehigh guy. I catch up with them and we rotate pulls back into town. I tell the Guy Who Fell, “I guess I did recover.”

By the time I’ve changed clothes the people in the lower parking lot have gone home. Only Tom and the Guy Who Fell remain. I call home.

We’re on for dinner with Kevin and Rebecca in Belmar at 6. It’s 3:30. I’ll just about have time to shower. I buy a drink and two cookies at the Bridge Street Café, wash my face and arms, pull a mug of coffee from my backpack, and head home.

The caffeine makes me even more jittery, of course. I have 45 minutes to think about what happened today and what I’m going to do about it. Clearly I need to check my resting heart rate as soon as I wake up tomorrow morning. I’ll put the heart rate monitor on the nightstand when I get home. And I’ll have to take some time off for sure. I want to do Tom’s ride next Saturday. That gives me six days off. No biking. No Spinning. No lifting. Nothing. I’ll have to read more about overtraining, too. And blog about it.

As Cheryl is fond of saying, “Listen to your body.”


PART TWO: BELMAR

I have just enough time to shower and send an email to Michael and Glenn thanking them for the ride and for distracting me. I down some milk, grab one of the Frenchtown cookies, fill a bottle with water, and jump in the car with my hair still wet.

After my first bike trip to Belmar, Chris asked me what I thought of the place. “Well,” I said, “It lacks the charm of Cape May and the nudity of Sandy Hook.” Numerous trips later my mind hasn’t changed.

We arrive in Belmar minutes after Kevin and Rebecca do.

I’ve biked down here enough times to be convinced that there is nothing at all redeeming about Belmar. I doubt that dinner at Klein’s fish market will change my mind. It doesn’t, not least because I’m vegetarian. It’s hot, crowded, loud, and the Shark River has been completely removed from nature. Save for a few gulls, the rest is concrete, bridges, and tourist boats making noise. Klein’s does make some good cole slaw, though, and the pasta is tasty. I’m finally just hungry now, and I clear my plate.

Rebecca suggests we take one car and drive over the Shark River drawbridge to Bradley Beach, where she spent every childhood summer at her grandmother’s house.

First we walk along the boardwalk. I take a few pictures that come out blurry as the light fades:




We cross the main street. To the west beach houses stand choc-a-bloc against each other like a walled city. At least the sunset is pretty.



This isn’t really fair; I’m comparing the architecture to Cape May and the beach to Sandy Hook. Belmar and Bradley Beach just can’t compete. Where Sandy Hook is a state park running wild with au natural bathers and au natural beach vegetation (even cacti), Belmar looks like an inner city plunked down near a nearly duneless beach. Where Cape may is proud of its Victorian architecture and bird sanctuaries (I can think of three off the top of my head), Bradley Beach has, well, a boardwalk. But this place is full of memories for Rebecca; coming here has stepped her back in time and that’s worth more to her right now than anything.

Rebecca takes us to an ice cream parlor one town over, in Ocean Grove. I go inside to buy candy sticks to save for later. Jack and Kevin get sticky from their ice cream; Rebecca and I manage to stay clean.

We walk on to Asbury Park. I ask Jack for one of the candy sticks I’d asked him to hold for me. “Hmm, watermelon?”

“Scallop,” he says.

Green apple.

There’s something surreal about this edge of town. The skeleton of a casino stands next to an abandoned, looming concrete bath house. I prefer Asbury to Asbury Park.




We walk through it, smelling the air of has-been and surreal.

On the other side is a strip of stores, one of which is a candy shop. I have to go in, of course. I get salt water taffy, which is the most cliché thing one can do during a day-trip to the beach. Jack, Rebecca, and Kevin are sitting on a bench facing the ocean.

I get my candy sticks back and open another one. “Carp,” I say to Rebecca. Watermelon.

It’s time to head back to the car. Over the ocean the moon is rising, a misshapen orange ball on the water. Everyone walking on the boardwalk stops and stares. I take out my cell phone, knowing full well I won’t capture the moment.



(There's only so much a watered-down version of Photoshop can do with a bad cell phone photo.)

We walk on. I pull out the last candy stick. “Octopus, I think.” Lemon.