What kills me is not climbing but long sustained climbs that don’t seem to end. I belong to a bike club that organizes rides. We have about 50 Saturday rides that consist of a short, medium and long ride.

I did the medium ride today and it is one of the most grueling climbs of the 50. It is about 5 miles of constant climbing ranging from probably 8 to 18 degree, then about a 1 mile of flat and another 3 miles of 6 to 12 degree climbing.

I tried this ride a little over a year ago and had to turn around half way through the ride. Today at least I completed the ride but stopped three times for my heart rate to come back down. I actually had to get off the bike and sit on curb because I was getting dizzy. This is the first time I ever had to do this.

In the past three years I have had two surgeries to repair my diaphragm and move my stomach out of my chest where it collapsed my left lung and cut off oxygen to the left side of my heart. I am fixed now but improving my fitness for these long climbs is damn hard.

I may not have helped that it was 94 degrees with 45% humidity and I probably didn’t bring enough water but I don’t think that is what kicked my butt.

My goal is to do this ride without stopping and if possible reduce the level of suffering but I need some sort of plan to do it. My concern is that I might be damaged goods and not capable of doing this ride but I don’t want to give up.

Any suggestions?