Back at 'er

After the grueling 14 days of a water fast, the thought of food was more than overwhelming. I decided to do it smart this time without giving in to the taste buds. I took a trip over to whole foods and bought bags and bags of oranges to make my own orange OJ. While I was waiting for the Water Ionizer to come in, I would drink organic orange juice. It has a ph of 8.0, and ORP of -200, so that is the best water I can drink right now. So here is what it looks like get a huge amount of oranges to juice.

You'll need a hand squeezer for the oranges, a bowl, and a something to sift out the pulp.

$20.00 of oranges turned into 64 oz. of freshly sqeezed oj. Man, that is a damn shame that it's that expensive.

I broke the fast Jan 8th first thing in the morning, so I drank oj all day Tuesday and Wednesday. I introduced food in the form of watermelon, soup, and a salad on Thursday. I felt great and I was so excited about getting back on the bike, that I hit the road for a 2hr spin.

I did my normal 40mile route, which normally takes about 2hrs, 2mins. Well, this day I came in at 1hr,56mins,2sec. What? I'm 6mins faster my first day back on the bike after over 5 weeks off? This has to be a fluke, and in the past I would always go out the next day to see if I could do that type of ride again, but to no avail. Well, on Friday, I went out and did the same workout, and came in 7 seconds slower. Ah damn! I'm on to something.

I decided to do the Sheridian Ride, which is a huge jump up in the pace, and the amount of surges. But I have always performanced ok when I'm back on the road bike after a break. It's always the mtn bike that is suspect for me.

The last couple of times I went to the Sheridian ride, they had already left so I was a little nervous about getting there only for the parking lot area to be gutted out like a ghost town. Not the case this day, it was packed like it was during the summer. Bike America, B&J, Z's Bike's and a host of other teams were out in force. That meant it would be a really fast ride.

We get going and I chat with some of the riders that I haven't seen in a while. Like Enzo, that has just just moved up to Cat 2 and it's safe to say that Flaco and Victor have upgraded also.

The pace picked up and we stop talking. We blaze over 75, and coming down my chain drops and it's on the outside. It's stuck between the pin and the crank. Enzo and Raul Bello are pushing me along at 28mph while I'm trying to pull it back out. I have to stop at the light and put it back on. I jump back on and hit it hard but they are 100 meter away, and that means death to the legs. But I'm saved as the grey SUV pulls me back up to the group at 34mph. As soon as I get to the group my chain drops again, and I now know it's happening because the shifting is off when I go to the big ring. So I have to come to a complete stop and put it back on again.

Now, I'm a little frustrated, and I think my guy is gone so it's no way I'm going to get back on now. I still hit it in hope of the group getting held up. But I'm the one that is held up by tight slow traffic, and they are gone. I keep hitting it, and I look down and my heartrate is 177bpm. I did not want to be riding this hard, in fact, I didn't want to be riding this week so riding this hard is way outside of the program.

But I'm saved by my SUV guy and takes it up to 32mph and we chase the group all the way to Hwy 27. We turn on 27 and we take it up to 34mph again, and it takes about 4mins to catch the group. When he pulls through I give him the thumps up to say thank you, and as I look down we are going 32.3mph. I get in the slipstream and my heartrate goes from 178bpm to 150bpm. I start making my way to the middle of the group for more protection and better position.

As we turn on 84 I realized that it's a headwind with a slight crosswind, so I make my move to get near the front in case things start to shake up. Things don't shake up, but the front group are really nailing it. We don't go below 26mph the entire time we are on 84. I'm starting to feel better and almost fully recovered from the acid bath back on Sheridian Rd. and some of 27.

Going over I-75 things start to shake up, and I'm neatly tucked in the 1st third just chilling with a heartrate of 147bpm. Once we get to the sprint, Bike America and B&J are battling to set things up. Z's Bikes couldn't keep it under control. I'm about 15 riders back, and I start to pick off riders before they go for the sprint. Flaco is now at the front with Victor behind him to set up Enzo. Bike American makes a jump and ruins the leadout, then you see everyone start to go for it themselves. I actually don't open up my sprint as I was afraid the chain would come off, but I did manage a 6th place finish.

I know that I'm in for 85 miles, so I'm nervous about the last hour of the ride, as I know I'm going to be hurting from the all out effort earlier. I grab a Avian water and 2 nutrigrain bars. I get a call from UPS that my Water Ionizer is here, and he needs to get into the gate, so I call Mrs. P.

I hit the road and the next hour was great, as the power in the legs was still good. As soon as I got to the turn around the point, I immediately felt the power draining out of legs. By the time I got to mile 75 I was really tapped out, and I was hoping for it to be over. I caught a 3rd wind the last 15 mins and brought it in really inspired. I did 85miles in 4hrs, 6mins. I download the chart in my polar performance software, and the Avg Speed for the Sheridian ride was 27.6 in 1hr, 49sec. I had checked all other charts, and the best the ride had done was 1hrs, 4mins.

I got in the house and saw the box with the Water Ionizer in it. I showered, ate some chicken torilla soup, and opened the box up. I felt like I had a new toy, and I had done so much research that I knew I have the advantage now. Things are looking good for "Project: Drop them bitches", or I"m so putting my foot up my own ass talking all this cash money if I can't back it up.

I took all the literature and read through everything before I touched anything. It came with a dvd, that really put everything in lamens terms, a chart that explains what the other bottle water companies ph balances are, another chart explaining which ph water benefits certain situations, plus directions for assembly.

Well, here it is in all its glory. All Hail, more oxygen, and hydration.

A pic out of the box.

I got all the hardware to put it together.

You could assemble it under the sink, but I would have to drill a hole for the tube to get to the ionizer. So I opted for putting the diverter on the spigot, and running the tube to the unit. And there is it. Not even 10 minutes and I had it hooked up.

It came with a kit that you could test the ph, as you can see, 8.5ph water is running out of the unit, and the purple indicates that it is highly alkaline water.

I went through every water setting, and tested the water for chlorine and the ph level. Everything checked out like they said, so I put 1 gallon of 8.5 ph water in the fridge, and took a nap.

I feel like writing this type of post on my blog, because it is more than me trying to have great results. This is more of a social responsibly, because drinking high ph water with a negative ORP has been known to cure diseases like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, chronic constipation, detoxifies the internal organs and blood, and it penetrates deeper into the tissue to rid your body of toxins and acidic waste.

If you think I'm crazy about being this fanatical about trying to be better on each level, that's great. But my hidden agenda is for you to be able to look into this and maybe suggesting this unit for a friend or relative that has any of the ailments, because it will put them back on the path to beter health. When I have had a chance to get some good test, I'll give you an update.

I decided that I would give the ph water a test with regards to riding my bike. So I got up Sunday morning, drank 24oz. of 9.5ph water with Emergen-C in it. Not even 10 mins later my stomach felt a little funny, and that was followed by a trip to the bathroom to drop some riders off. But I had already dropped my normal amount of riders off. Well, I won't make a note yet.

I ride up to 84 and Glades and meet the Weston Flyers group, and they are motoring into a headwind. They ride double line, and more times than I can count it turned into single line when riders stop taking pulls. I work my way to the back, and not even 5 minutes later, I'm at the front taking pulls. I didn't want to, but when you are a strong riders, other riders start looking for your wheel. And I hate it when the riders stop taking pulls and wait for someone to organize it.

By the time we get to Weston to go back out to Glades I'm in the top 5 taking pulls while 25 other riders are just watching. I'm not even in my big chainring, so I move out of the paceline to politic this without the chain coming off like the day before. It comes off again, so I'm off the back but I'm able to keep the bike rolling and I get it back on. I hit it hard and before long I'm going 31mph, and I catch the group and my heartrate is 193bpm. Shit! Me, and this bullshit shifting has got me working harder than I want to.

I sit in the back and ride it all the way up Glades while I'm getting the heartrate down. We take it back East on 84 hammering again into the head, and there is a charge up over I-75, and I respond to the move. Things slow down on the backside and things shake up before 136th. I charge at the last moment to win the sprint, but I only got up to 32.7, but that was painful to do into the wind.

At this point we are going up north over the Sawgrass Mall, and I almost decided to take it home as we pass my street just before Sunrise. At Sunrise I realized that I haven't drank anything and I was 1hr into the ride. I drank one entire water bottle and we continue up over the mall, then back down to the Orange Road. I don't even go for the sprint, as I know I'm in for another 20miles and I don't want to be hurting at the end.

I drank the other water bottle at the gas station and grab another nutrigrain bar. I buy an Avian water as I now know that is the best water I can drink in any gas station, as it is a ph of 7.5. I put an Emergen-C in each bottle and hit the road. I decided to keep my heartrate under 150bpm, even if I was going to go too slow. The1hr hour went by so fast that I didn't even notice it. Nor did I even remember to drink, so I slamed a water bottle on 84 and brougt it in at 1hr, 2mins.

I get in the house and check my weight, and I had only lost 2.2lbs. What! 51miles, and I only lost 2.2lbs? I drank 9.5ph water before I left the house, then 2 bottles of 8.5ph water during the ride, then 1 bottle of Avian. I know the I normally lost more weight than that. I won't get too extensive yet, as I really want to gather more information before I give my report. I can say that after 7 hours, my legs feel great.

I'm going to start to put together my program of getting into race form. This year may be the first year that I race out of form, so see if I can race myself into form. My tenative plan is to do the Markham Race if I can put together some form. Since I'm doing big rides regarding distance, I'm going to test the legs to see if I can do very long rides without the legs cramping. If I can get pass that, then I'm going to do the 12hrs of Santos. That is probably the best course that I could do because most of the terrain is flat with only a few places that go up and down. I have about 1 month to put together some good form. If the form is not up to par for the 12 hrs, then I will most likely do the 6-hr. But I want to get out and see if I can battle all day, so that is where my head is at.

When I'm definitive, I'll holla back at ya!

Pacer Out!