Thank You Hammer Nutrition
How do you think a company for helping realize a dream? Having the words to express my thanks may prove beyond my communication skills. Let’s start at the beginning.
I’m a 52-year-old with Asthma, Relapsing Remitting MS and Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (also known as cancer or the Big C). “When I was younger and dumber” is how a nice man explained when he road across America on a bicycle. I could relate. Martin’s ride was a dream hatched in my twenties after a 100-mile ride from my parent’s house in Greenwich, Connecticut to Wallingford and The Choate School (class of 1976). Much of my first long ride was on old Route 1, a nasty highway. I didn’t care. It was love at first pedal stroke.
A lot happens between ages 25 and 52. Getting old is not for wimps. Action was the only way to save my dream. I quite my job as an E-Commerce Director and started three months of inadequate training for Martin’s Ride To Cure Cancer. My training regime was inadequate in climbing and nutrition. I can’t explain how important nutrition is in life and for Martin’s Ride. Nutrition, or as my exercise physiologist triathlete sister calls it “fueling”, is everything.
I can be stubborn. I was stubborn about changing eating or “fueling” habits. Despite having a world-class nutritionist (my sister Caroline read:
Sweet Caroline) in the family my 25-year-old mind was controlling a 52-year-old body, not a good combination. I trained with Powerbars and water. I rode what I now know are FLAT roads. Once you’ve climbed 10 mountains with elevations over 9,000 on a bicycle you know the difference between flatness, grades below 2%, and mountains, grades from 6% to 12%. Using Garmin GPS for bicycles I could see grades we climbed. By the end of Martin’s Ride I could accurately predict grade with little more than a quick look.
Hitting North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Parkway with its beautiful vistas and steep grades was a lesson in need for better nutrition and training. I will never NOT know the difference between a hill and a mountain again (lol). AND, Colorado was ahead of us. In Colorado we slept at 7,000 feet, higher than the highest peak in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We would climb several 9,000 feet plus mountains with Monarch Mountain, elevation 13,200, the highest (not the steepest).
In North Carolina and Tennessee I drank water and ate sugary granola bars, you know the ones in Super Markets that are granola in name only. I used to work for M&M/Mars and distinction between candy bars and these granola bars is slim. Problem with this kind of fueling is you go up fast, from the sugar rush, and come down hard. Riding 25 miles a day in training it is easy not to notice how bad this kind of nutrition brings on bonking. Bonking is a complete capitulation of the body, you have nothing left and are incapable of going further. Bonking happens over time and due to burning up more fuel than you have. The deficit builds until a tipping point and then you are done, your body throws the towel in. Riding the Blue Ridge Parkway I felt like death warmed over. I was over my head and knew it.
“Sometimes you bite off more than you can chew,” I told my mother when we met for dinner with the team in Tennessee. Interesting I used this cliché. Nutrition, or lack of same, was shortening my days, made it feel like I was riding under a heat lamp and wasting me. Think of getting up every day and riding 40 to 70 miles in 90 degree weather (or rain) and getting up the next day to do it all over again. After almost getting killed climbing Blue Ridge mountains whose elevation was around 5,000 I sent up an emergency flare. My sister was waiting for my call. She knew what was coming. “Here is Hammer’s 1-800 number and use my customer number to get 15% off your first order,” She said. By-the-way, you click on my number:
164192 if you are a new Hammer Nutrition customer to receive a 15% discount. I get some much appreciated credit so you will be helping Martin’s Ride if you are new to Hammer and use my number as a reference.
I called Hammer Nutrition and ordered Vanilla and Chocolate gels. I like single serving gels. They are perfect size even if impossible to figure out how to squeeze every last drop. I liked to roll these tubes of liquid power from the bottom like toothpaste. Since there is no way to get all the gel out, it can make a mess of bicycle jerseys. I put my finished gels into side pockets on my front pack. I still have gel detritus on my pack, better on my pack than inside back pockets on expensive bicycle jerseys.
My sister insisted I buy Perpetuem ® and Recoverite ® too. I was skeptical, but did as I was told (for once lol). When my sister is right she is right. Each morning I mixed two scopes of Perpetuem into a water bottle, grabbed three gels and headed out. I would drink several scopes of Recoverite immediately after each day's ride.
What a difference Hammer’s Nutrition made. A lifelong dream was in danger of dying after the Blue Ridge Parkway. Death during some of the Blue Ridge climbs might feel like a welcome relief. Colorado was different. Once we were used to the altitude, remember we were sleeping higher than the Blue Ridge’s highest peak, Hammer fueled climbs I didn’t know I had in me. Monarch Mountain and its 13,000 feet of elevation posed the biggest challenge (read
Climbing Avoided Mountains).
After my sister’s too short visit, she rode with me for three days in Colorado. She lives in Highland Ranch outside of Denver. We discussed how I was feeling and determined under fueling may still be a problem. “You are a big guy burning lots of calories in this heat and through exertion, so we need to increase Perpetuem and gel intake,” my sister told me. “It is almost impossible to over fuel in these situations,” my triathlete sister shared.
With my sister’s advice in mind I created a Monarch Mountain attack plan. I’d had an asthma problem several days earlier climbing to Bishop’s Castle, Colorado. It felt like a hand was squeezing my lungs above 9,000 feet. Riding without air caused my only abandonment on Martin’s Ride (
Read Colorado’s Singing Mountains). My plan was to ride Monarch Mountain’s ten-mile preamble stopping every five miles for a drink of Perpetuem and a gel every other stop. Once on the main climb I would stop every mile for Perpetuem and Gels. Each stop I would take a picture. Taking pictures forced me to slow my breathing and calm down. Panic caused my asthma problem as much as anything on the first day’s climb to Bishop’s strange “Castle”. I wouldn’t panic this day and I would fuel, fuel and fuel some more.
I rode alone. I wanted to go at my own pace. Around 10,000 feet Jeremy and Brian, the rest of the Martin’s Ride team, were sure I wouldn’t make it to the top. I knew I would.
My Monarch Mountain attack plan was working. I felt challenged and legs were burning, but I wasn’t having asthma problems and it was getting cooler the more elevation I gained. Heat and MS don’t go well together. Get too hot and it is easy to become mentally confused and worn out, a little like being drunk (lol). Mountains are great. They get cooler as you go up and hotter as you come rocketing down.
Jeremy and Brian were sure I wouldn’t make it to the summit they parked the RV at the Monarch Mountain Inn. They and the RV would wait at the Inn for me to give up and come back down. They were waiting for Godot. Thanks to Hammer Nutrition and my friends at GlaxoSmithKline for creating the asthma medication
Advair I was eating homemade fudge at the Monarch Mountain Café. I deserved a treat after humping up to 13,200 feet (was my thinking). Fudge was “fueling” after that ride ☺.
Miracles didn’t stop at Monarch Mountain. Two days latter I climbed three greater than 9,000 feet mountains and rode 70 miles staying on my bicycle over six hours. Hammer Nutrition made Martin’s Ride possible, they helped realize my dream. Without Hammer I go home, as my mother suggested, when we hit the Mississippi. With Hammer I dipped my wheels in the Pacific ocean, saw Zion’s natural church, Bryce’s Hoodoos, Yosemite’s El Capitan, a bear cub amidst giant sequoia and met hundreds of great people and many fellow cancer patients.
My sister goes to “Hammer Camps” at Hammer’s headquarters in Whitefish Montana. She knows how to use the full line of Hammer endurance nutrition including Hammer’s pills to aid endurance and recovery.
Finding a expert guide is a must. Athletes speak their own language, so hire an interpreter if you are a nutrition-illiterate (like me). After a Caroline suggestion, I started blending in Heed, Hammer’s electrolyte powder, with my morning Perpetuem and liked the mixture. I’m drinking Perpetuem and Heed as I write this in Duke’s large chemotherapy infusion room. I'm treating chemo like another Monarch Mountain. I fuel with liquid in the morning and limit my meals to bland solids in order NOT to upset a jittery stomach. As a result of using Hammer's gels and powders I feel better than last time, much better. I rode 24 miles yesterday after chemo round 2, unheard of last time. Today I'm tired, but chemo is over for another 30 days or so leaving plenty of time to get back on the bike and use Hammer's liquid calories when solids are too adventuresome.
Hammer Nutrition, for all they’ve done and are doing for Martin’s Ride, is awarded an honorary sponsorship. As an honorary sponsor Hammer has our loyalty, appreciation and thanks.
15% Discount
Remember to click my customer number:
164192 when you place your first order to receive 15% off.
Remember to use my sister Caroline as a guide, reach Dr. Caroline Smith at her web site
MetabolsimMagic.com.
Hammer Links
Hammer Nutrition Web Site
Hammer Facebook Page
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My thanks to everyone at Hammer Nutrition. Keep up the great work and if you need a testimonial or someone to speak about how they used your products to come back from Chemotherapy count me in as it would be the least I could do for saving a dream.
Marty
Martin Smith
Founder, Martin's Ride To Cure Cancer
Email: MartinSellingZoe(at)aol and Martin(at)MartinsRide.com
LinkedIn:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/martysmith1980vc
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ScentTrail Marketing (blog):
http://ScentTrail.blogspot.com
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