the bonk…

[alecstilleyedye]

think i suffered the first one i've ever had yesterday.

i went out with the club despite a slight cough. after a steady 50k at 27kph we got to the café (flat but with a nasty rise at the end) and while queueing i felt the urge to sit down. i managed to order a flapjack, tea and some coke and water for the bidon, but once i sat down i could barely eat, and some of my clubmates said i looked awful.

i should say that this speed/distance was no way a stretch for me; indeed we did the same distance to the same café two weeks ago at higher speed with no ill effects.

so, i called mrs alec who, despite being eight months pregnant, got the kids in the car and came to get me (at least the café was very kid friendly and does great ice cream). in the half hour she took to get there (the rest of the club went on their way once they knew help was coming), i started to feel better and finished off my flapjack and drank the contents of my bidon. once help came, i had the energy to take the bike to bits to put in the car/roofbox while they sat in the sun eating ice cream.

is that the bonk? our saturday clubrun leader reckons so; he phone me later to make sure i was ok. if not, i might need to go to the doctor's.

 

[Telemark]

hmmm ... it sounds like you are/were possibly about to come down with something, and the bonk symptoms are your body's way to tell you that it's busy fighting off something, and not to distract it from that job.
Hope you'll recover quickly

T

 

[GrasB]

Sounds like early stages of bonk to me, lucky you stopped when you did as when you rest the body tends to give the symptoms more readily. It would have been far less pleasant blowing up in the middle of no where.

 

[Broadside]

I would guess that this was more to do with you feeling a bit under the weather. I pushed myself on a ride recently when I was starting to come down with a cold. I managed to get home but felt dreadful until I went to bed that night 12hrs later.

Like you I thought I had probably bonked but on reflection I think my cold was worse than I had given it credit for. You really notice what a cold takes out of your body when you are trying to push yourself on a bike.

 

[e-rider]

Doesn't sound like the bonk to me - and I've bonked loads of times! Sounds more like you have/had a virus or something.

 

[yello]

Sounds more like you have/had a virus or something.

I'd go with that too. Especially considering you said you felt a bit under-the-weather before setting out. Time will tell but I'd not go charging off to the docs just yet, just take it easy for a bit. Unless of course legs start falling off or something

 

[accountantpete]

No - the bonk is when you get back to an empty fridge and seriously consider eating the cat food.

 

[jimboalee]

If it was the real bonk, the ride leader would have pulled the icing off a bun and shoved it down your throat.

As he didn't, it couldn't have been the bonk.

Flapjack wasn't really the best thing to eat. The little sachets of white sugar would have been better ( take the sugar out of the paper sachet before eating ).

And wash down some salt with the water from your bidon.

 

[ColinJ]

I agree with some of the other posts. It sounds more like a bug, not the bonk.

One time when I bonked I couldn't even stand up, let alone walk or ride a bike!

Another time I needed to cross a junction and I suddenly realised that I couldn't work out how to do it. I also couldn't figure out where I was, my blood sugar was that low. I drank a can of Coke, ate a Mars Bar, took a big swig of carbo-drink and ate a sandwich and within about 15 minutes my head started to clear. Another 10 minutes or so and I was able to go on my way.

I've got a similar lurgy to you at the moment. I did a little 5 mile ride at the weekend and almost collapsed when I got home. No way do I bonk after 5 miles!

 

[e-rider]

Yeah, I've got that too - that's why I got dropped the other day from a club training ride - must be the same thing going round!

 

[zacklaws]

Perhaps something is going round, after that ride in Hebden Bridge, Spring into the Dales, I've gone downhill and struggling with all my rides and feeling totally run down and lethargic with no enthusiasm to do anything apart from sleep which I cannot do.

I was going for a long ride today but cannot motivate myself as I'm too tired to start.

Probably done too much overall.

 

[ColinJ]

Perhaps something is going round, after that ride in Hebden Bridge, Spring into the Dales, I've gone downhill and struggling with all my rides and feeling totally run down and lethargic with no enthusiasm to do anything apart from sleep which I cannot do.

Sorry to hear that, but it's interesting. In your case it might just be overtraining but I have definite symptoms of illness - wheezy chest, pulse rate and temperature up and swollen glands in throat. Do you have any of those?

I had a coughing fit out on that ride about the time your chain jammed and you fell off. It came on very suddenly and for no apparent reason. I felt okay on the Sunday evening but started feeling rough over the following day or two.

I'm supposed to be doing a forum ride out of HB on Sunday so I'm hoping that I feel better by then. I'll go for a test ride on Friday or Saturday to decide one way or the other whether I'm up to it.

I hope you feel more lively soon and join us for another ride some time.

 

[GrasB]

The point of collapse is when you've complexly exhausted your energy supply for that level of effort. If you catch it as you start eating into the last dregs of energy reserves often with rest & taking in simple sugars you can lift the reserves up enough to feel better. When ill/under the weather firstly your energy reserves are smaller as you are burning more energy in a 'resting' state, secondly you're effectively doing more work for the same perceived effort level, both of these cause you to run out of energy sooner.

For me a great example of this was going home yesterday, I didn't feel great but wasn't really bad so had a nice slow ride home keeping the HR down, still when I got home I felt exhausted like I'd been on a hard ride. A quick check of my blood sugar levels showed they'd dropped through the floor, not to the levels of bonk but certainly not up in the normal range.

 

[zacklaws]

I had a coughing fit out on that ride about the time your chain jammed and you fell off.

Was that a bout of laughter that brought on the coughing fit. I thought laughter was supposed to be good for you.

May have put the finger on the pulse why I'm struggling, vitamin deficiency, usually I eat a load of fruit everyday, but because I am skint I have not bought as much as I usually do these past few days. Mid morning I took a Zipfit vitamin tablet from some free samples I had, then took a berroca which I had bought a long time ago, a couple of hours later I was as fresh as a daisy, wide awake and took off like a bullet on my bike as my motivation had returned and felt good out on the bike.

 

[hobbygirl]

so is the bonk same as hypoglycaemia? hubby type 1 diabetic and reacons he bonks when hypo