The Big Bonk

 Bonking.  Hitting the wall.  Lead legs.  Crashing.  Running out of gas.  So many names.  One simple thing.  Most of us have heard of it.  Several of us have experienced it.  It’s that thing that happens when you don’t fuel enough during a sporting event, and suddenly your body begins to betray you.  Everything feels harder than it should. Then things start to feel impossible, and only get worse.  You may know the feeling intimately.  For me, the initial stages of a bonk vary depending on what activity I’m engaged in, but generally it starts with a massive case of grumpy.  If I’m on my bike, I start to get really mad at my hair.  More specifically, I start to hate my braid.  REALLY HATE my braid.  Why won’t this fucking braid stay off my shoulder.  Just stay in the middle of my back.  Why is that stupid braid hanging down my back.  I HATE my braid.  And on and on it goes.  If I’m backpacking, I start to hate my backpacking partner’s backpack.  Look at that stupid backpack.  I hate it.  I hate the color of it.  And it’s just sitting there on her back, riding along and looking stupid.  I can’t even stand to look at it.  I hate it so much.  Why my braid or my backpacking partner’s backpack?  I have no earthly idea.  Anyone who has entered the early stages of a bonk knows that you are knocking on the door of a nonsensical universe.  Having been in sports for most of my life, I almost always recognize the preliminary misguided anger as the start of a bonk and will quickly intake calories to stave it off.  Not always though.

I remember the first time I bonked.  It was during a high school volleyball game back in 1996.  Our team was playing our cross county rivals at their gym, so we were in hostile territory.  The junior varsity teams played first, so I sat in the stands with my varsity teammates and dutifully ate my pre-game snack.  The game lasted longer than expected, so by the time we took the court for our varsity game, I was already feeling a little hungry.  Fierce competition and the roaring crowd provided enough adrenaline to power me through for a bit.  But it wasn’t enough.  I started to have tunnel vision, felt light headed and clumsy.  During a break in play, I frantically eyed the crowd, searching for my mom, who was a beloved teacher at my high school and known by all the students as Mrs. Graham.  I knew she would have some sort of snack in her magical mom purse.  I spotted her, caught her eye, and yelled “I need food!”  The rival crowd roared with laughter, and someone in the stands started to chant, “Heidi needs food! Heidi needs food!”  It started out as a taunt, but our fans quickly joined in, encouraging my mom to find something for me to eat.  The referee blew the whistle and play resumed.  When that play ended, our coach called a timeout.  I ran to the sideline, eyes still on my mom.  By now, she was frantically digging through her magical mom purse.  The crowd grew quiet as all eyes fell upon her.  Her hand emerged and the crowd gasped, then moaned as she held out a packet of saltine crackers.  That wasn’t going to cut it.  In she went again, rifling through, digging and digging, all eyes in the gym focused on her.  Once again, her hand emerged, this time holding packet of oyster crackers. The crowd groaned again, growing restless.  Back down she went, spelunking to the depths of her magical mom purse cave.  Her hand emerged a third time.  The crowd went silent, desperate to see what she had found.  She held it up triumphantly.  In her hand, she grasped an original, old school Power Bar, glistening in its foil wrapper glory.  Never mind that it was the texture of shoe leather and had a flavor reminiscent of an old banana peel.  In the mid 90s, Power Bars were the pinnacle of sports nutrition.  The crowd took a collective gasp, then erupted with cheers.  My mom tossed the Power Bar down the bleachers to my coach who handed it to me.  As I shoved half the bar in my mouth, one of our fans started chanting “Mrs. Graham!  Mrs. Graham!”  Within seconds, the entire gym joined in the chant. My mom blushed and tried in vain to disappear into the wooden bleachers.  I frantically chewed the old banana peel shoe leather Power Bar, the referee blew her whistle, and the teams went back on the court.  That half of a bar saved the day.  I don’t remember if we won the game or not.  I do remember that I immediately felt better as soon as I had that snack.  Lesson learned.  Or so I thought.

The next time I remember bonking was many years later.  I was probably in my early 30s at this point.  I had done a long bike ride and miscalculated my caloric intake needs.  In other words, I didn’t take enough food.  I was riding with a friend who lived at the top of a hill, so at the end of the ride I rode home with her and then headed back down the hill to ride the three miles to my house.  I was beyond the grumpy stage but had no choice but to push through to get home.  On the descent from my friend’s house, I lost the sensation of being on the road.  I felt like I was flying on my bike.  I could see the road passing under me, but I couldn’t feel it.  I was aware of my legs turning the pedals, but they seemed detached from my being.  I was hyper aware of my surroundings as I made it the last few miles home.  As soon as I walked in the house, I grabbed the first thing I found in the pantry, which happened to be a chocolate Hammer Gel.  It was THE BEST thing I had ever tasted ever in my entire life.

Fast forward to my late 30s.  I had done a really hard ride and once again didn't bring enough food.  I was about five miles from home, knowing I was on the verge of a hardcore bonk, so spinning easily and trying to push aside the grumpy.  Out of nowhere, one of the guys from my cycling group pedaled up beside me.  He was just starting his ride so was feeling fresh and excited.  We exchanged hellos and I told him about the ride that I was about to complete.  We continued to chit chat, talking about cycling and the weather and random other topics.  The entire time we pedaled together, I tried in vain to remember his name.  To be clear, this is a guy whom I had ridden with nearly every Saturday for the past three or four years.  We knew each other well.  We were cycling friends.  I searched into the depths of my brain but neither his first or his last name emerged.  There wasn't even a glimmer, not even that little pulling sensation of the name being so close to the surface.  It was a black void of nothing.  I stared at him, willing his name to pop in my head.  Nope.  It refused.  It wasn't until I got home and ate that his name willingly and easily came to the surface.  I laughed at myself.

My most recent bonk was last fall.  I was on a three day backpacking trip with my friends Lisa and Nathan.  It was the first day of the trip, and we had what we estimated to be a ten or eleven mile hike into camp.  As we hiked, Nathan was pointing out all the plants and trees along the way and giving us the scientific names of them all.  I love that kind of stuff so was listening intently, asking questions, and trying to commit to memory all the new information he was imparting upon us.  The day was lovely, the hike was great, and the company was perfect.  Until it wasn’t.  I noticed that I was becoming irritated with Nathan’s ongoing plant education.  I do enjoy hiking in silence at times, so assumed I was only becoming annoyed with the lack of silence.  We kept hiking, thinking we had maybe three or four miles to go.  I noticed my irritation increase with each passing step.  Another mile went by.  The irritation was morphing into simmering rage.  Finally I realized what was happening.  I was in the midst of a full blown epic bonk.  Now, the sensible thing would have been to stop and eat right then and there.  As I mentioned before, good sense goes out the window during a bonk, and I was deep into it.  My brain told me that I only had a few miles to go, that we would be to camp soon, and I could eat then.  Just power through it.  You’re almost there.  Eating sounds hard and inconvenient.  Keep going.  So I did.  Then, well, then things got weird.  The rage dissipated.  In its place, a sense of expanded euphoria took hold.  Suddenly I was in love with the world.  The river was sparkling in the afternoon sun, and as I gazed at it, I could feel the water running over my skin.  The plants became vibrantly green, vivid and swaying in the breeze.  I glanced down at my legs and was surprised to see that they were still moving.  Wow! Look at my legs!  Those are my feet!  They just keep going!  One step at a time, they keep moving. That’s amazing!  Nathan was still pointing out plants and trees, but his words no longer landed on me.  They seemed to attach themselves to the plants and trees that he was identifying.  I felt more than heard the trees whisper to me as I walked by, repeating their names to help me remember. More than anything, I felt connected to everything.  I felt as if I was one with the water and the air and the trees and plants and dirt.  We were all the same and it was glorious. I felt light and free and full to the brim.  I have no idea how long it took us to get to camp.  I had lost all concept of time.  As soon as we got to camp, I took off my boots, sat down on the ground, and ate a full bag of trail mix.  We were camped in an old apple grove, so after I finished the trail mix, I picked a few apples off of the nearby trees and ate those as well.  Gradually, I felt my senses return to normal.  The sparkles faded and I returned fully into my body.  I have never done a vision quest, but I can only imagine that I got a taste of what one might entail.  

To be clear, I am an advocate of proper fueling.  Bonking is never a goal, nor should it be.  I will say that I did enjoy the euphoric sparkly connectedness that I felt on that backpacking trip.  Was it safe?  Eh.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  We were not on a technical trail, nor were we at high elevation.  Either way, things can always go wrong, so I don’t plan to do something like that again.  I do find it fascinating that I have lived in my body for 45 years now, and I still sometimes don’t recognize the signs of hunger when I am doing activities.  I would like to think that the old adage of “With age comes wisdom” stands true, but perhaps not always.  Either way, bonking makes for good stories.