First 50-Miler!

Our training continues to go well. We've ridden more than 450 miles since Patti got home from her trip to Idaho. Our rides have averaged about 30 miles each. We did our first 50-mile ride on May 28th, exploring a route from Francesville to the Tippicanoe River State Park. Our actual distance was 54.2 miles. Took us 6 hours and 50 minutes of pedaling to get it done. Not fast! Nevertheless, now we know that we actually can do 50-mile rides ... without dying! 

The question remains, however, can we do it for 18 straight days? That's about how long we figure it will take us to ride from Indiana to Albany, New York later this summer ... if we ride straight through ... if we average 50-miles per day. Actually, it probably doesn't matter all that much. We intend to ride to Albany at a comfortable pace for us, enjoy the journey, take rest days if we need them, and let the miles/day shake out as they will. We have no deadlines to meet. Our goal is the journey itself. We'll let the younger people worry about setting land speed records. 

We also accomplished several other "firsts" while completing our first 50-mile trip. For one thing, we logged our first 1,000 miles on our trikes. Watching that number roll over on our odometer was a satisfying experience in its own right, especially given where we started. We also experienced our first flat tire, despite our Kevlar-armored Schwalbe Marathon tires. We put those tires on our trikes specifically to reduce the risk of flats. Ironic, huh? The flat happened on my trike's right front tire. Actually, the same tire went flat twice within about 15 minutes. We checked the tire out thoroughly after the first flat. Or, at least we thought we did. We examined it both inside and outside, looking for any sharp thing that might have caused the flat. We found nothing, installed a new inner tube, pumped it up, and rode on ... for about 15 minutes. 

We checked the tire even more thoroughly after the second flat. This time, Patti spotted a very small object embedded in the tread. It appeared, after she dug it out, to be a tiny piece of sharp, flint-like stone. Lesson learned!  Thankfully, we were packing two spare tubes with us. Otherwise, we would have found ourselves sitting in the hot sun, on the side of the road 25 miles from home, trying to find and patch a very tiny hole. 

     

Learning, of course, is part of the fun. We have learned, for example, that the amount of time we've had to devote to riding each day has increased as the length of our rides has increased from 10 miles per day to more than 30 miles per day. It's beginning to seem that all we do is ride, eat, sleep, eat again, ride again. And then repeat it all again the next day. Not much time or energy for anything else. Who would have thunk it?  

It's been fun, but ...

We've also learned that we need to intentionally schedule days off (even when it's not raining!) simply to give us enough extra time and energy to keep up with the other parts of our lives. For some reason, the grass in the lawn has no respect for our training schedule and just keeps on growing while we're riding. Same goes for dishes in the sink, laundry in the basket, unpaid bills in the mailbox, and a host of other "routine chores" that seem to transform into huge piles the instant we go for just one more ride. 

We've also learned that we sometimes just need a day off to rest our bodies and refresh our minds. The combination of heat, humidity, and strong winds we've had over the past few days has really taken its toll on us ... wringing out both our bodies and our enthusiasm. On top of that, we've had strong thunderstorms rumbling through almost every day, sometimes with hail and threats of tornadoes. Watching the weather report has become almost an obsession. The wind, especially, has a profound effect on the time and energy it takes us to complete our rides. It's hard to get wildly enthusiastic about slogging along for several hours at 5 mph into a 25 mph headwind. The only way we've found to physically deal with this situation is to shift down to a low gear that allows us to "spin" along at a comfortable, sustainable pace. 

The greater challenge is mental. The solution we've found simply is to accept the wind for what it is,  forget about "making good time," and just enjoy the ride. And, when the wind gets too much to handle, just take a day off and wait for things to change. I think these realizations, born of riding into the wind, may hold some deep lessons for other aspects of our lives. The Tao of Triking ... or some such thing.   

So, today was one of our intentional days off. I worked a little in the garden (off and on) getting ready to plant beans. Actually, I should have had them in the ground several weeks ago. If I don't get it done soon, there won't be any point in bothering. Patti has been catching up on the laundry and relaxing with some of her crafting stuff ... making stuffed cats actually. She also made several batches of rose petal jelly this week. We had a bumper crop of roses this year. In any event, we're relaxing today. Tomorrow, we will ride again ... or maybe we won't. We'll let the wind decide for us. 

This week will see the completion of our "base training" phase. Next week will be a recovery week, with no significant riding at all. The week after that, we will begin the next phase of our training, called the "build-up" phase. Our training, so far, has emphasized long, relatively slow rides. The next phase will emphasize shorter rides at higher intensity. The purpose of these short fast rides will be to further "build-up" our cardio fitness, leg strength and endurance. We also will work in at least one long ride each week during this phase on the premise that what is not trained gets "untrained." A secondary benefit of our new schedule should be a little more free time to take care of the chores we've ignored while doing our long slow rides. 

In addition to our regular "training," we also plan to make several overnight camping tours in our local area in June and July. These shake-down tours will provide an opportunity to test and refine the list of equipment we'll be taking with us on our Albany trip. They also will help us get our bodies accustomed to riding with fully-loaded trikes. Hopefully, we'll also have some fun!

Finally, we also have had some fun with our family this week. We made a trip to Schaumburg on Monday to attend our grandson Jake's 8th grade graduation. Last weekend, Garth, Megan, Jake, Kaylee, and Megan's mother stopped by our place on their way home from a trip to Ohio. Of course, we had to play with the trikes. I will close this entry with a few photos of our trike play, plus the graduation ... and hailstones.