About 4 years ago, I tried (and failed) to ride the hilly-ass road from my house to the Appalachian Trail.
Yesterday, I tried again. I made it the whole way, and never even walked any of the hills. I almost had a heart attack on one of the hills, as I spun a 17″ gear at about 120rpm, but I made it.
Victory!
I turned my lights on, just like the sign asked me to.
All this #30daysofbiking foolishness has me feeling like a bad-ass, and I’m starting to think about the metric century I promised myself I’d train for this year.
So, I came up with a training plan.
All I really did was take the old century training plan I ripped out of an old copy of Bicycling magazine, cut out the last three weeks, and interpolated the remaining weeks to keep the weekly increase to a manageable 2 miles per week. Over the next 23 weeks, the “long ride” gradually increases from 16 to 65 miles.
I made a spreadsheet with this plan in it, because once you put something in a spreadsheet, then you know you mean business!
To my eyes, the first few weeks of the plan seem ridiculously easy, and the last few seem ridiculously hard. That probably means it’s right on the money.
Today is the 15th, and I’ve ridden every day so far this month. I have 116 miles so far, which is a lot for me.
Last year, I only logged 87 miles for the whole month of April, so I’m off to a good start.
I got out for 14 miles today. Not far from the halfway point, there was a young lady out in her yard doing yardwork or something. As I rode toward her house, she shouted “Nice bike!” to me. I shouted “Thanks!” and kept pedalling. Then she shouted “Nice butt!”
It was pretty much the best day ever.
Day 7 was a bust. I hopped on the bike and rode down the road for a few seconds, just to be able to say I rode.
Day 8 was a little better. I got in 14 miles on the Buffalo Valley Rail Trail between family Easter dinners and whatnot.
So far, I have 66 miles in for the Month, which is pretty darn good by my standards. If I can keep this up, this will be my highest mileage month ever (or at least since I started tracking my miles twoish years ago.)
My legs are starting to feel it, though. I’ve been on a bike every day for the past 11 days, and I have that dull, throbby, achey feeling in them. If it weren’t for the whole 30daysofbiking challenge, I’d definitely like to take a recovery day. But, there’s no glory in that, so I’ll keep pressing on.
