91 miles in 2 days!

The Lonestar Chapter of the MS Society really wants us to end right in front of the Capital Building in Austin, TX. It’s really a moving spot – I’ve cheered from the sidelines many times – so I can sort of understand why the Lonestar MS 150 is really 100 miles on Saturday, April 18 and 82 miles on Sunday, April 19…182 miles.

I’ve been told that if you can complete ½ the distance for your “big” ride (or run…but let’s not even think about that yet!), then you can assume that you can make the big ride. So, we set out during our vacation in South Padre Island to ride 91 miles in 2 days. And we did it!

We rode north from where we’re staying to the end of the island road, 10 miles. Then we rode back (20 miles). Then we rode out and back again (40 miles). And then we tooled around the island until we got to 45 miles on Tuesday and 46 miles on Wednesday.

Erin would have preferred to ride around the island so that she could watch the college boys more. Nathan would have preferred more opossum sightings (there was one live one and one dead one sighted). Stephen would have preferred not being stuck with an allergy attack on Tuesday night. I would have preferred fewer dump trucks and sand on the road. But…we did it!!

The scenery was stark and lovely (at least the first couple times it was…). The north part of the island is undeveloped, so the dunes roll and roll from bay to gulf. Occasionally the sand “drifts” across the road – just like snow does! And riding a bike through a 2” ‘drift’ of sand is just like driving a car into a snow drift…a little scary the first couple times, but as long as you don’t swerve or stop pedaling, you’ll get through it ok. There was road construction all the way up the island, so at times we were sharing the road with dump trucks, 12 wheeled tractors, back-hoes and various and sundry spring break kids driving up to see the sights. At one point, Nathan and I were “leading” a convoy of breakers through a construction zone. We “poured it on” and got up to 20 mph so that the cars behind us didn’t get stuck for too long.

We’ve eaten SO much! We really thought we’d tired Nathan out – but we haven’t…although that sort of remains to be seen. Yesterday he had a two hour nap and two Dr. Peppers with dinner. Today, we’re not going to let that happen. I’ll let you know how that works out!

Rain

Texas needs rain, so I really can’t complain that my Thursday morning ride was rained out this morning. I am anxious enough about being “ready” for the big ride in April that I didn’t dare to skip a day of training entirely. So, I reserved a bike in a spinning class at the gym where we’re members.

Now, I’m no stranger to this gym. Three days a week, I go in around 7AM and work my tail off lifting weights, doing sit ups (240 yesterday!) and rolling around on the stability balls. And Stephen was pretty surprised to see that I’ve logged about 100 more miles than he has throughout this training season on the “real” bike. So, I’m no slouch.

But I was completely unprepared for the level of exertion the spinning class demanded! It was billed as a “Spin-Core” class which means that we’d spend 45 minutes on the bike and then 15 minutes doing core exercises. I was actually bemoaning “only” 45 minutes on the bike – how boring.

I got a little orientation to the bikes and to the class and then the sadist – er, instructor got on her bike and started coaching. After a 5 minute warm up she started telling us to “add a gear” about every minute to simulate a hill. No biggie…it’s just that this “hill” was about 5 minutes UP. At the top she allowed us to drop a gear or two to simulate going downhill– but there’s no such thing as coasting on these bikes. If you stop pedaling, the pedals keep spinning and you have two options: fall off (I didn’t like that option) or start pedaling again. So, I kept pedaling and the next thing I knew she was telling us to start up another hill.

About 15 minutes into the class we had our first set of “position 3” intervals where we stood as we pedaled for 1-2 minutes and then sat back down on the saddle for 1 minute. I did two intervals and had to sit the remaining 3. For the last 10 minutes of the class, it was stand for 45 seconds, sit for 15 seconds, with one minute of rest in between intervals. I did one of those. I figured since I was no longer just perspiring, but had sweat dripping from my face onto my hands, I was working plenty hard. I offered up a heartfelt prayer of thanks when the 45 minutes were up. The instructor estimated that we’d gone about 18 miles. That’s about 1.5 times as fast as I usually go.

The core stuff at the end was a walk in the park. The only move she did that I couldn’t keep up on was the ball pass. That one’s pretty tough and I’ll get better at it over a couple weeks.

One of the men in the class told me that I had to come back and take another class tomorrow and one on Saturday because “if you don’t, you’ll never come back.” That’s a chance I’ll just have to take, I think.

Been a while.

I think I’ve ridden three times without writing anything. I conquered the bridge at Wilcrest the very next weekend. We had decided to skip the organized training ride that weekend since it was cold (with a wind chill!). We waited until it warmed up and rode out to GBSP (I don’t like to say the name of the park – I love the park, don’t much like the person it’s named for!). It was just me and Stephen and Nathan since Erin had devoted most of her Saturday to volunteering and thus was stuck at home doing homework on Sunday. It was kind of a boring ride, really. Out and back. Wind (of course) on the northbound and westbound legs. The biggest challenge really was the bridge.

The next Thursday I rode out again and accomplished 28 miles. I have decided that I enjoy these Thursday morning rides so much that I plan to keep on doing them even after April – I imagine Stephen is giggling to himself as he reads this – he doesn’t think much of biking for about 3 or 4 months after the MS 150 each year. We’ll have to see. My late class meets on Thursday nights, so I can justify going in to work late – I may even agree to have a night class every semester to make this happen. Or…maybe not!

So, on Saturday, all four of us got to go out together. The ride started in New Waverly, TX – about an hour north of us. We loaded the kids up, they fell asleep and we drove up north. We had originally planned to “go long” – that means we would choose the long route (52 miles) vs. the short route (32 miles) – but a 25 mph wind from the south (we’d be heading right into it for the last 10 miles) made us change our minds. We rode uphill, downhill (18 miles an hour!!), uphill again, downhill again (21 miles an hour!!) uphill again, downhill again (24 miles an hour – yikes!) and just for good measure, uphill again and downhill again (OH MY GOSH!! 28 miles an hour!!!). Nathan’s new bike has turned him into a bit of a speed demon – he just flew up and down the hills like they were nothing!

Once we turned into the headwind, we filed in behind the Engineer (Stephen) as he dragged our wimpy butts up (7 miles an hour) and down a few more hills against the wind. Erin’s knees were really hurting by the end of the ride – but we did it! This weekend we have to choose between 42 miles up and down hills or 52 miles up and down hills. Doesn’t seem like much of a choice for me. I’ll let you know what we choose!