The Inconveniences of Cramping

I know I’m not the only one who’s experienced cramps after a big day on the bike.  Why does this happen?  It could be lack of fitness, dehydration, low on electrolytes, etc.  Whatever the reason, sometimes cramps creep up at the most inconvenient times.

On Monday I had a big hit-out with TC, and yesterday I smashed out a hard 120km’s in the morning. That afternoon I went straight to a job interview after the hammerfest.  During the interview I’m sitting there while my potential boss is grilling me over my work experience and the typical behavioral types of questions.  Near the end, the interviewer is asking me some closing questions while suddenly my left calf and quad completely seizes up and I scream out in agony!  The poor guy had no idea what my condition was.  Was I having a heart attack!?  A stroke!?  Epileptic seizure?  A bad case of Delhi Belly?  I was gritting my teeth and scrunching my face trying to cover up my pain while I clutched my leg.  The interviewer had no idea what was going on with me until I mustered …”CRAMP!”.  He looked at me concerningly but still didn’t quite understand what was going on.  After squirming around and shaking my leg for what seemed like eternity, I finally had to pull myself up, straighten out my leg and limp it off around his office.  All this while I couldn’t say anything except “CRAAAMP!” while he looked at me like I’m some kinda freak.   Nearly dropped the F bomb during all of this.  How embarrassing…

If the interviewer was a cyclist I’m sure he would have completely understood and cut me some slack.  Somehow I’m quite certain I won’t be getting offered this job though, but at least I got a story out of it that I’m sure you all can relate to.

Something like this…

TIP: HYDRATE before going to a job interview after smashing out a big ride!