Today marks the halfway point in my first official week of training and I feel compelled to write about my ride yesterday because of unusual feelings I experienced.  While I like riding my bike, I don’t LOVE it.  There have been many times when I endured a ride for the sake of getting a workout or for burning off all the baked goods I consumed that day.  I do try to look at whatever scenery is passing before my eyes, but since I’m still a relatively new cyclist, I feel that it is more prudent for me to watch the road instead of the sights around me so I have a better chance of staying ON the bike.

Yesterday, I confess that I felt…enjoyment.  Appreciation.  Fun.  It was a lovely day and I was biking past Red Rock Canyon, which is one of the most beautiful places around.  My legs also felt good and I was testing new cycling shoes (a.k.a., “Penguin Shoes”) that were comfy out of the box.   (Louis Garneau CFS-300.  Cute, yes?)

I made it a point to look around me and to see the different colours in the sky and mountains.  I breathed in fresh air and felt gratitude for the use of my limbs.  I even pushed myself a little bit to sprint up hills a wee bit faster than my normal turtle pace.  I saw a cycling acquaintance who stopped to ask how my training was going thus far and I was able to answer “good, so far” without any irony, sarcasm, or regret.

When I arrived home, my SAT eagerly asked “so….how was it?”  I said that I had a good time.  I think I shocked 5 years off of his life with that answer.  I proceeded to eat, shower, and roll my legs (I think that may be my new addiction!) then basked in the glow of a ride well done.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today marks the official start of my training and I am not sure if I am resigned to my (questionably sane) idea, scared of it, or revealing my extreme ignorance and naivety in going ahead.  Last weekend’s mini bike tour experiment was more to see if my psyche and butt could handle 2 back-to-back long rides.  Admittedly, the tour was “pushing it” for me at this point in my training journey.  It is cool, though, that I did it; despite the physical and psychological pain, my body is capable of grinding out a lot of miles already, albeit at a modest pace.  However, now that I am mostly recovered, I am going to start training in earnest, if not with enthusiasm, with the assistance of an actual double-century training program that maps out the number of miles per week.  I am using Bicycling magazine’s program and beginning with week 4 (out of 16).  I am not starting at week 1 because my base cycling level is stronger than that (case in point: I survived a bike tour last weekend!  According to my mileage last week, I would be starting at week 14 today!).

Week 4’s total mileage is 135 and today is scheduled to be a recovery-paced day of 11 miles.  (Mondays are typically recovery days while training because the weekends are for long, difficult, arduous, painful rides.)  The rest of this week mandates ride lengths of 16, 19, 20, and 53 miles.  Not too bad.  Since this week is Thanksgiving week, let me take a moment to be thankful for this training plan:

(clears throat): I am thankful for this training program — especially this week — because it will serve to mitigate the thousands of calories I will consume at Thanksgiving dinner.

I am also thankful that I have short rides this week.

Yeah.  Positive thinking.  See?  I AM trying here!

Apparently, serious cyclists do a short, low-intensity “recovery ride” the day or two  after a big effort.  Mine was yesterday and I think I need to recover from THAT ride.  Legs are stiff and sore and my mind was screaming at me to stop hurting myself.  The ride was one I’ve done many times before and is a mellow 25 mile “breakfast” ride (i.e., early in the morning).  I think my average speed was a good 5 or 6 mph slower yesterday (and I was actually TRYING to pedal!).

I’ve never trained for a physical event; the only thing I’ve trained to do was to learn the piano and endure years of school to get to a professional level.  (Yes, dear readers, I’m a pianist and teacher!  Perhaps I’ll post pictures or audio clips as proof soon.)  One would think, then, that discipline, mental fortitude, and persistence would be easy for me to practice, but it is not.  I don’t like physical pain, I’m inherently lazy (when it comes to feeling pain from exercise), and I’m not a huge fan of sweat.  Oh, I’m impatient as well.  I want to be good NOW.  Unfortunately, it turns out that I’m easily discouraged by what other experienced endurance athletes (like SAT) already know: to get stronger, you will be weaker.  Exercise and training is about breaking down muscles in order to build them back up stronger.  I know that this endeavour is a long-term deal, but right now, I just want to bake cookies and read a book.

This weekend is going to be spent doing a mini bike tour with my self-appointed trainer (“SAT”).  Since I’ve committed myself to training for a double century, SAT thought it might be a good idea to see how I’d feel after doing 2 long-ish bike rides in a row.  Well, why not?  At this very moment, I think that’s a good idea as well.  [N.B.  I am well rested, my legs are feeling great, and I’m typing this on my laptop inside my cozy little abode.]

Our plan is to bike from home to Searchlight, NV, which is “only” a distance of 100 miles (160 km).  We will bike back home on Sunday, taking a different route from Searchlight, making the distance shorter at 76 miles.  The temperature is supposed to be nice with minimal wind.  Sunday’s forecast?  High of 52F (11C) and winds up to 22mph (35km).  I do not see a “wind warning advisory” on weather.com yet….all I know is that the one and only time I did a mini bike tour (with SAT in the spring), I remember battling headwinds the ENTIRE time.  No, I am not exaggerating.  30-35mph headwinds BOTH directions.  It was miserable and difficult and made me question my sanity.  There was a tiny part that was laughable: specifically, that one 12-mile mountain pass that was just brutal to pedal up in the face of that darned headwind and more difficult to pedal downhill in the face of that same darned headwind the next day.  I never had to work so hard to bike downhill in my life (I think our average speed was 9-10 mph on that 6% descent because of that 30-35mph headwind).

So, yes, this weekend may not be all fun and games, but I am going to do my best to view it as “toughness training.”  Fear and trepidation?  Yup.  At least I get to carb-load today.  Bring on the fries and pasta!

Oh my goodness.  Tonight, I used rollers for the first time.  No, I was not in a casino.  My dear husband (aka, sadistic self-appointed trainer) said that I NEED to use foam rollers to self-massage my legs, especially now, since I’m getting into ultra-long cycling.  Basically, you are using your body weight to roll yourself back and forth while on top of the roller.  This gives you the same benefit as getting a deep-tissue massage.  Muscles are lengthened and stretched, reverting to a healthier state of being.  (For some reason, meat tenderizing comes to mind…!)  While it is very true that using foam rollers is incredibly therapeutic, it is also true that it HURTS LIKE HECK.  I almost cried.  It hurts.  I turned to look at my self-appointed trainer with tears in my eyes and whimpered, “are you enjoying this?”  He actually smirked and said “sort of.”  Grrr.

I will fully admit that my legs feel a whole lot better and looser after undergoing that torture session.  Yes, I will continue this rolling thing….it will get better.  Right?

I got my first road bike in May 2013.  It is pretty, goes fast, and costs a lot of money (perhaps not as much now, due to depreciation).  My husband was pretty happy about my fledgling interest in cycling; after all, he is crazy-obsessed-bordering-on-insanity “into” cycling of ALL kinds.  With me entering the world of road biking, he now has another buddy!  Well, as friends and other well-meaning types do to their loved ones, my husband took me to Red Rock Canyon for my first real road ride.  It was hard.  The scenic loop is a 13 mile, one-way paved road that winds through the stunning peaks and canyons of Red Rock Canyon Conservation Area and offers glorious views everywhere one looks.  Unfortunately, that day, I was huffing and puffing my way uphill for the first 4.5 miles (elevation gain of about 1000 feet in those 4.5 miles), trying to get acclimated to my new bike (aka, “instrument of torture”) and wondering what drug I ingested that made me think (uphill) road biking was a good idea.

And then I started going downhill at mile 5.  REALLY fast.  I wasn’t trying to pedal.  I was just trying not to crash and die.  I learned that my shiny new road bike (Specialized Amira) was indeed a race bike and it wants to go fast.  Apparently, riding one’s brakes is not the greatest thing to do in terms of preserving bike longevity.  Did I care?  No.

Perhaps the most irritating thing about that first road ride was hearing my husband’s ever-chipper voice giving me encouragement all the way around the loop WITHOUT BREATHING HARD.

Since that inauspicious start, I have ridden that bike 2-3 times most weeks, with the exception of a month here and there where I was out of town for work or busy with in-town opera gigs.  I’ve successfully wheezed and whined through a few long rides with my “self-appointed trainer” (i.e., husband) and completed 3 century rides (100 miles / 160 km) without passing out and vomiting.  I’ve had biking friends tell me how “fast I’m getting” or how “hardcore” I am, but honestly, I just view biking as another way to workout.  I don’t have any aspirations to race and I don’t have any desire to do extremely long “fun” rides (like 300 or 500 mile rides).

Last week, I realized my birthday is coming up in a few months and thought that would be the perfect opportunity to do something different.  “Self,” I queried, “perhaps it’s time we did something BIG.”  My intent was to train for a physical challenge that would really push me.  That activity should be one that I already know how to do or one that would be relatively easy/accessible to begin; I thought about running a marathon, but I know that I don’t want to pursue that at this point in my life (or ever?).  Doing a huge hike didn’t seem like a big enough challenge because I have already done a lot of those (the most recent being Mt. Whitney at the end of September).  Attempting a project like the John Muir Trail, Pacific Coast Trail, or bagging several Sierra Nevada peaks in succession would be amazing, but that would require a lot of time that I don’t want to spend right now.  Permits are required for all of those endeavours and I want to keep logistics to a minimum.  That left biking.  Darn.  So I thought about what I’ve already done and what seemed like the next logical step.  I don’t HATE biking, I just like other things more.  However, doing something huge on the bike would truly be a challenge for me precisely because it isn’t my preferred activity, it is a relatively newer sport for me, and because I find biking hard most days anyway!  I decided to shoot for a double century (200 miles / 322 km) because that is the next step up from a century.  And here I am, typing up this first blog entry on this brand-new blog in order to document the bike training over the next few months for my records and YOUR amusement (yes, you).  Stay tuned for more fine details.

 (February 2014, Chocolate Chase scavenger hunt, Las Vegas, NV.  I will exercise for food.)