Written by: Jeff Banowetz
Posted: Wednesday, 25 June 2008
What were you doing from May 4-12 this year? Aurora resident
George Hood was in a YMCA atop a Spinning bike, endlessly pedaling, consuming
7,200 calories a day, fighting saddle sores, hallucinating about his own
kidnapping—and trying to set the Guinness Word Record for the longest ride on a
stationary bike.
George Hood looks exactly like you’d expect a man who
recently burned 46,000 calories over the course of a week. Well, perhaps better
than that. His lean, chiseled frame and military-style haircut gives the
50-year-old Hood the appearance of an ex-Marine or tough Spinning instructor.
(He’s both.)
He speaks of his world-record attempts on a stationary bike
with the precision of a law enforcement officer (he’s done that, too) and
displays the motivational skills necessary to convince himself and a team of
volunteers that it’s a good idea to spend more than a week keeping his feet
rotating nearly nonstop.
One can only imagine the amount of time he spent envisioning
his planned 154-hour ride, computing the number of calories he’d have to take
in, charting the frequency of his 10-minute catnaps and finalizing every last
detail.
Maybe then you can hope to understand what it must have been
like for Hood to find out, nearly 100 hours into the ride, that he had the
world-recod time wrong. Instead of the 154-hour he had planned, Hood would have
to reach 175 hours if he wanted the record.
Pity his poor friend who had to approach him with the news
and ask, “Do you have 20 more
hours in you, George?”
The Record Attempts
To break a Guinness World Record involves much more than
simply staying on a bike, juggling bowling balls or consuming a ridiculous
number of hot dogs. Each record certified by the organization comes with a
strict set of rules for both the task itself and how to document it. For Hood’s
record attempt, a marathon ride on a stationary bike, he must pedal at least 12
miles every hour (measured on a Guinness-approved odometer). He’s permitted a
five-minute break every hour, which can be accumulated and taken in a larger
block of time. Every aspect of the event must be meticulously documented and
recorded.
“Getting a world record isn’t easy. It’s a big process,”
Hood says. “It can take months to get everything together and months for
Guinness to certify it.”
Hood is no stranger to the process. He set his first record
in 1986, when he jumped rope for 13 hours and 11 minutes. “I had always jumped
roped to stay in shape for the Corps,” he says. “And when I saw the world
record, I thought that’s something I could break.”
He left the Marine Corps to work for the U.S. Naval Criminal
Investigative Service (NCIS). From there, he moved to the Drug Enforcement
Agency in 1995, which brought him to the Chicago area.
In 2005, Hood was diagnosed with Graves’ Disease, which made
it difficult for him to run, and he bought a Spinning bike to keep in shape.
Before long, he was hooked, and looking into the world record for marathon
spinning.
“I found out it was 82 hours,” he says, and soon started
upping his training.
Hood’s first record attempt took place in January 2007, and
he used the event to raise money for the Concerns of Police Survivors (COPS),
an organization to help the families of officers killed in the line of duty. In
training for the ride, he would go to the gym at midnight, ride until 6 a.m.
and then head to work.
“I was down to three hours of sleep a day,” he recalls. “It
turns out I worried way too much about the sleep deprivation. I overtrained for
that.”
But the long hours in the saddle otherwise paid off. He rode
for 91 hours straight, setting an unofficial world record in the processs. “It
was a huge success, and we raised $30,000,” Hood says. “But unfortunately, we
didn’t have our act together in keeping our log and paperwork in order. And
Guinness didn’t certify the attempt.”
The experience showed him, however, the right way to do it,
and in July 2007, he made his second attempt, this time riding 111 hours, 11
minutes and 11 seconds while raising $35,000 for Kiwanis International. This
time, a donor helped pay for a Guinness representative at the event, and the
record was official. But it wouldn’t last long enough to get published. Just
two weeks later, his record was broken with a 132-hour ride.
“I thought it would last longer than that,” Hood says with a
grin. “So I thought, let’s do it one more time, and raise some more money for
another charity.”
The May 2008 ride began to
take form. This time he’d ride at the Fry Family YMCA in Naperville and raise
money for the YMCA Strong Kids Campaign. He set the goal of 154 hours—nearly a
full week—and began working with Guinness to make sure his record would be
certified. But at the very least, he need to break the new record of 132 hours.
“You have to remember, it can take six months, easily, for
an attempt to be certified by Guinness,” he says. “And they don’t have to tell
you about any outstanding attempts. But as a courtesy they try to keep you
informed.”
He began training seriously in early 2008. How do you train
for a week on the bike?
“Time in the saddle,” he says. “That’s all it is, just
spending hours and hours on the bike.”
The Ride
Hood’s goal was to start riding for 15 hours straight,
starting at 9 p.m. on Sunday, May 4, which would give him a 75-minute cushion
for rest in case he needed it.
“Those first 15 hours were just as we expected,” he recalls.
“We got that extra hour in the bank, and really tried to keep it.”
He kept to a basic liquid diet, using Succeed sports drinks
and electrolyte pills, consuming about 300 calories an hour. He urinated while
on the bike (discretely, into a bottle), and managed to average only one trip
to the bathroom a day. “It worked very well,” he says. “But the problem with a
liquid diet is that it seemed I was constantly peeing.” Eventually he added
saltine crackers with peanut butter to include solid food in the mix.
For sleep, he’d take periodic 10 to 12 minute catnaps.
“Honestly, just closing your eyes is rest in itself,” he says. Throughout the
ride, he took 57 breaks for a total of 12 and half hours, nine and half of
which was used for catnaps.
The first real problem came with a nasty case of saddle
sore.
“Something just started rubbing the wrong way, and it became
exteremely painful,” he says. He worked to keep the area lubricated, but any
false move would trigger intense pain.
“They had to lift me straight out of the seat when I stopped
pedaling for a break, otherwise I’d rub against the seat and it would hurt so
much,” he recalls now. “And you have to remember, once you’re deprived of
sleep, you’re not yourself. It’s very easy to lose your temper and get
frustrated.”
That lack of sleep eventually lead to hallucinations, often
taking Hood back to the darker moments from his military and police work.
“With the hallucinations, you can’t distinguish between
what’s real and what’s imaginary. You have to rely on the volunteers to bring
you back.”
At one point he imagined himself being kidnapped and dragged
into a car. “I put my arms up to hold on to the door frame, to keep from being
put in the car,” he says. “The volunteers brought me back to reality.
“I can’t say enough about the team of people I worked with,”
Hood says. “I really miss them. It was just an experience I’ll never forget.”
The toughest part of the ride came between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m.
“During the day, there’s lots of activity and music and people to talk to,” he
says. “Through the night, it’s rough. It’s really rough.”
On Friday and Saturday night, a fellow Spinning instructor
brought in a group for a 90-minute spin class. “That contact, having people and
energy around me, really helped.”
The Call
About 100 hours into the ride, organizers got a call from
Guinness. It turns out that in September 2007, someone had beaten the world
record of 132 hours. Guiness had just gotten around to certifying it—this
week—and the new mark stood at 175 hours, 50 minutes.
“No one knew what to do,” Hood says. “They didn’t know how I
would take it. They even called my coach in Hawaii to get some advice. But
eventually the decided they had to tell me.”
He admits to being very upset—after all, he’d made a point
of asking about any pending records—but decided that he would shoot for 175
hours. “It wasn’t just me,” he says. “Everything had been planned to be over on
Sunday—the volunteers, the facility. But everyone else was willing to keep
going, so I decided to try it.”
It was early on Monday morning as he approached the mark. It
was a school day, but his three sons started showing up at 4 a.m. At 5:51 a.m.,
he set the record. He lasted another two hours, but he was ready to stop. His
final, and world record time, was 177 hours, 45 minutes
As for recovery, Hood says his body bounced back
surprisingly fast. Sleep, on the other hand, remains an issue a month later.
“Messing up your sleep pattern takes some time to get back,”
he says. “It’s getting better, but if anything wakes me up at night, I’m up for
good.”
After pedaling the equivalent of 2,600 miles over nearly
nine days—without going anywhere—does Hood have any plans to take his bike
outside?
“I’m not a cyclist,” he says with a laugh. “I don’t like
roads. I’ll stick to my spin classes.”
Those 90-minute classes now seem like a breeze.
Once again, Hood raised more than $30,000 with this latest
record, and the thought of another one remains a possibility.
“It’s too soon right now,” he says. “But never say never."
To see YouTube videos of George Hood's marathon ride, visit the following links.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF5-cUiR8YU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQfERBdQK1g&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMYkZ5fJPuQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uORPIQ8bqos&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSFxGpZvyBw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhWG0K851W8&feature=related
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