Epic Stall!Century Cancelled...Bigger Lesson Learned.

I was all set to ride 100 miles on Saturday, but with the temperatures heading up towards the 90's last week, I went to bed Friday night sick to my stomach from heat stroke. Rather than injure myself 2 weeks before the ride, I slept in Saturday, and made a more mild 33 mile jouney from San Francisco to Fairfax.

I am learning at this stage that it is more important to learn to listen to my body and know when to quit, than to ride through adversity, with the possibility of injury. I have had to come to terms with the fact that I might not ride all of the 545 miles, taking advantage of the sweep vehicles to take me and my bike forth on the course, if necessary. But I will ride every mile I can, with a goal of riding 100% of the 545 miles. But if it comes down to a decision of health versus statistics, I've decided to take a break where necessary.

So this Saturday was good practice. I got to feel the effects of extreme heat around mile 25 and it was very uncomfortable. By the time I made it to the end of my ride, I was sick to my stomach and light headed. I think 100 miles in those conditions would have been debilitating. And I got to practice saying "enough." Perhaps just as important when it comes down to completing the ride and remaining healthy.

Happy Bike To Work Day 2008 !!!

Between leaving my house this morning and arriving at work, I stopped by four energizer stations, ate 2 free bagels, got a free stylish tote bag, renewed my SF Bike Coalition membership, and spoke with a handful of friendly cyclists.

On my 10 mile ride to the office, according to the on line calculator, I burned 360 calories. And compared to driving a SUV, I spared the air of 12.1 lbs of toxic emissions, and saved $6.66 in fuel costs. I wonder if that number is not merely a coincidence . . . you decide.



Commuters arriving at the Caltrain station this morning to find the friendly volunteers giving out bagels and tote bags and signing up new members to the SF Bike Coalition. I'm proud to be a part of the growing bicycle culture in the city.

Lunch: chicken fried steak torta from a "frutas, verduras, tortas" shop in SF. With my metabolism geared as high as it is, and the number of miles I'm riding, I don't have to worry about the amount of calories I eat. I just eat until I'm full. Another plug for cycling in this food obsessed society: canceling your gym membership! (yet more $$$ I'm not spending on a monthly basis on top of not owning a car.) Alright, enough ranting for this blog post. Off to digest . . .

Mind over matter. The turn of the century is near.

A "Century" is a slang term for a 100 mile ride.

June 1st is right around the corner. That is the day that I will be amongst 2,500 bicyclists rolling away from San Francisco on our seven day, 545 mile journey towards Los Angels.

I am ready. Almost.

I sent out my final fund raising letter to my email list, and it resulted in a massive final outpouring of funds that pushed me well over my $5,000 fund raising goal. At this point, the pressure of fund raising is off.

I think between now and June 1st, my strength and endurance won't change much, so it's just a process of preparing mentally for the exertion and fatigue that will ensue during so many consecutive days of riding.

So towards the goal of mental preparation, this Saturday am going on my final intense training ride. I will be starting at my house at 5:30 am, and joining a group near the Golden Gate Bridge for a ride to Petaluma and back home. All together it will total about 100 miles! I have decided that if I can pull an unsupported century in relative comfort, then I am as ready as I need to be for the actual event, which will involve massive group energy, and staffed rest stops every 10 to 15 miles.

Whether I am with a group or not, I no longer feel that I ride alone. I am coasting on the support and encouragement I have received from countless people. I am grateful.

The Marin Headlands. A 'jaunt' is born.

Last week's training ride to the Marin Headlands was a revelation. It is perhaps the most compact, beautiful route I can imagine. And a round trip from my house, with some additional weaving, is about 25 miles. Perfect for these longer-lighted days.

Marin Headlands, I hope to see you again and again.

Here are some pictures from last week's ride, and a couple from last night, when I repeated part of the route for an evening training run.

Crossing the bridge, Marin Headlands in the background:

Stopping to rest up on the hill with my training buddies:

The view from here:

The descent, which involved navigating a long tunnel that uses a 5 minute delayed traffic signal to allow traffic through one direction at a time:

And taken during last night's "Jaunt":

I walked through the tunnel at the top, and found the following view on the other side. An epic expanse of trails and hills ripe for the exploring (another day).

The tunnel back to the road:

Bicycling - natural link to thrills and adventure.

I achieved my lifetime maximum single day mileage this weekend. 65 miles on Saturday, the 1st of March, 2008. It has become a wonderful feeling (as I wasn't feeling so wonderful at the time.) But, a couple days later, refueled through rest, ingestion of protein and carbohydrates, and lots of fluid replacement, I am feeling a mixture of accomplishment and doom. It was a difficult ride, and my capacity is about two thirds the way towards an average day on the seven day AIDS/LifeCycle ride. Oy.

The ride was undertaken with a crew of about 15 riders of varying experience, starting and ending at the Orinda rapid transit station, which is about 20 miles from San Francisco. I had been getting bored of riding to Fairfax, where the local rides were heading, and wanted to branch out to see territory unexplored, for which these training rides have been a fantastic motivation.

My training partner through the this ride seemed to be in her early 60's, and had previously ridden the ALC, and had ridden various bicycle touring events around the West Coast. I started up a conversation early with her regarding her custom bicycle frame, and ended up riding most of the day with her, as she maintained a slow, patient pace up hills. She had said to me several times, "feel free to pass me." And I replied, "I'd like to keep the pace slow, and I'm well aware of how many more miles we have to go." Which I can now call the voice of experience. I've learned that feeling good for 20 miles has nothing to do with feeling good for 40 miles, and absolutely nohting to do with being able to maintain comfort and stamina for 60 miles. So, a 4 mph uphill pace was plenty fast for me. At the end of the ride, I still felt very tired, but my knees were not injured, and the soreness to follow was minimized compared to rides where I had kept up a higher pace.

I felt like I had been let in on a Cycle Jedi secret when, after 10 or 15 miles together, she said, "Alex, I'll tell you something. The people who don't pace are the ones who end up filling the medical tents in the evenings during the ride." Tell it true!

Following are some pictures taken during a short training ride I took earlier in the week in preparation for my 65 mile day. These were taken at Fort Funston, in the southwest quadrant of San Francisco. The area includes a cliff overlooking the ocean. Hang gliders congregate there to float on the thermal updrafts.

Unleashing (or maybe leashing?) the inner Dalmation.

I biked about 85 miles this weekend! And while I am feeling a little weary today, my inner experience of qi is that it is full and freely flowing.

Something that I have realized about myself through training for the AIDS LifeCycle ride in June, is that physically, I am rather like a dalmation. Typing "dalmation exercise" into google yielded this page which yielded information such as:

• If you are unable to exercise your dog, then you will have to find someone who would love to, daily. Walking alone may not be enough exercise for your Dalmatian - - they need to run.
• Given the right diet and the right amount of exercise, Dalmatians can live to 13 to 15 years. Without this, their life expectancy is in the range of 7 years (according to the Dalmation Research Foundation).
  

It may sound strange in this context to say I can relate, but I feel that if I've learned anything about my body to this point, it's that I've been under-exercised for years. And coming from someone who doesn't own a car, and rides a bicycle as my main form of transportation, I have to say I'm a bit surprised. I'm guessing different breeds of dogs demonstrate different exercise needs, as do different humans, but apparently I'm geared towards the high end of the spectrum. As opposed to wearing out, I'm breaking in.

This comes as good news to someone who, as recently as a month ago, was laying awake with anxiety about how I was ever going to generate the motivation to train to the point that I'd be ready to ride 545 miles in 7 days, come June 1st.

Off to sleep before a big ride...

... if that's even possible.

I've just finished packing and preparing for tomorrow's bicycling journey from San Francisco to Petaluma to spend the night at the farmhouse of one of my oldest bestest friends. And I'm pretty excited. So should sleep come soon, I'll be grateful to bank the hours of rest that I'm most certainly going to extract tomorrow. The total distance of my ride, as calculated on googlemaps, should be around 60 miles! This will the be longest recorded single day of riding in my life.

Against published advice, I'm raising my current maximum from 40 miles to 60 miles, a 50 percent increase. The reason I'm making such a bold leap, is that the previous miles were logged on the back-breaking, calf-crunching machine known as my Marin Novato which I ride daily around the city.

The Marin Novato:

Tomorrow's ride will be undertaken on my plushy new steel steed, the Surly Long Haul Trucker! I consider the distances to be comparable, when considering "body miles" versus "road miles." Wish me luck!

**update 2/11/08: The actual recorded mileage, per my bicycle computer, was 50 miles. As I had mentally prepared for another 10, it felt like I arrived "early" and had a lot of energy to spare! Is that why some people set their clocks fast on purpose?**


(More Surly Long Haul Trucker Pictures forthcoming... I'm bringing my camera on tomorrow's ride.)

It's not about the Gas Prices, it's about the Fuel.

Somewhere between ages 20 and 30, intense exercise started to hurt. It crept up slowly and gradually, seemingly overnight. But I can't deny it, my 60 training miles over the weekend took more out of me than I expected.

This weekend I stacked two consecutive training rides that totalled just under 60 miles. The shortest day of the actual AIDS LifeCycle ride will be around 60 miles, so that gives me some sort of gauge of what kind of toll the ride will take. I must admit that I still have some fears about not being up to speed when the actual ride comes around, but I simultaneously see that by June, I will have many more training miles under my saddle, and my body will adjust accordingly.

Since my last post, I started joining organized training rides. It has made an immense difference in my mental state towards the ride. For one thing, when riding in a group, the miles seem to roll by relatively effortlessly. I have taken it upon myself to chat with people about their bikes and equipment at every chance I get while riding.

The training rides also impart something thatsolo training never will, which is the etiquette and procedures for riding in the AIDS LifeCycle. That includes:

• Stopping at every stop sign (actually coming to a complete stop, touching a foot down).
• Stopping at every red light (regardless of cross-traffic).
• Riding single file (Regardless of road width).
• Using hand signals for every turn or stop, as well as pointing out road hazards.
• Yelling out "car back" every time a vehicle approaches from behind.
• And more . . .

If you don't think that's difficult, I'm guessing you may not have spent much time on a bike seat. But, I am very glad these guidelines are incorporated into the training, considering there will be 2000+ riders heading down towards LA on June 1st. With that kind of rolling mass, simple traffic transgressions magnified could become unwieldy, rendering the ride a dangerous ball of inertia.

According to a rider who has participated in the ALC (AIDS LifeCycle) before, there are safety monitors on the ride who hand out tickets to scofflaw bicyclists. Enough tickets equals ejection from the ride. I also heard this comes as a mandatory response to the CHP threatening to pull the permits for the ride after witnessing too many reckless, life endangering acts. Thus have I heard!

Plateu One.

I breezed through my training ride this weekend. 30 miles on Sunday. Getting to this point mainly involved blowing the dust out of my system, and oiling my gears again. It's moving forward in mileage from here that I think will be more of a challenge. I had no problem with the cardiovascular aspect of riding 30 miles at this point, but it was around the 25th miles that mechanical issues started to surface. Specifically outer-knee pain. I will have to address this asap, either through readjusting my riding position, or through particular physical therapy exercises. I'm not exactly sure what the problem is. This may be a case for my "cycle buddy" with whom I'll be corresponding over the next 6 1/2 months of training. If anyone has experience with outer-knee pain, please comment on my blog. I'd like to hear your experiences, including what brings relief. Thanks!


I've included a photo from yesterdays' ride. I set up my camera on a tripod, and had it take a series of 10 photos. Here I am hamming it up in front of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Put some meat on those bones - or the unlikely lessons of Junior High.

"Put some meat on those bones."

I supposed I was thankfully still young enough in 7th grade to not get too uncomfortable when we had scoliosis testing during physical education class, and some girls yelled out that unsolicited comment about my physique in front of the whole class.

I probably just thought they were weird.


Regardless of how much I eat, I've been skinny my whole life. Strength and endurance have always come easily to me, but not body fat for insulation from cold, and comfort when sitting down for too long.

I'm not sure how to calculate just how many calories I'll burn in training over the next 7 months, but I'm sure it's a lot more than I'm used to.

So as to not waste away, my mantra for the next 7 months is going to have to be, "Put some meat on those bones." Giving thanks for awkward Junior High moments!

My diet plan, sketched last night on a page from a checking register by my dietitian sister, consists of this:

Breakfast: 2 packs of oatmeal, 1 cup soymilk, 2 oz almonds.
Snack: bread and nut butter

Lunch: 4 oz of protein, a piece of fruit, 2 pieces of bread, 2 TB nut butter
Snack: protein bar, piece of fruit

Dinner: 2 cups of pasta or rice, 4 oz protein, 1-2 cups of veggies, 1 piece of bread
Snack: ice cream

This equals a 2600 calorie / day diet, which she said will be necessary for me to "Put some meat on my bones" and not lose any of the weight that I don't have to spare.

I'd write more, but I've got to go eat something.

Why I tremble, and what brings relief.

I'm humbled and amazed by the way support appears in after I set my mind to a task. Yesterday was the first time I had mentioned to anyone that I had signed up for the AIDS LifeCycle ride. It was a particularly social Saturday, and so I had a chance to mention it to a lot of people. Responses included:

*That's great. I know people who have done that and had an amazing experience.
*Good for you!
*How many miles is that? (545). In how long? (7 days) Jaws drop...

Yep, even though I've considered myself a cyclist since I was in high school, this event will match any mileage and endurance records I've ever set on a bicycle, and surpass them by a long shot.

My longest ride in one day ever, to this point in my life: 60 miles in December, 2002. It was during a bicycle tour around the Big Island of Hawaii. Here are some statistics for comparison:

Ride	Total Miles	Days to complete	Miles / Day
Hawaiian Ride	350	30	12
AIDS LifeCycle	575	7	82!

Why I am not worried: I did the ride around Hawaii alone, unsupported, and in frequent torrential downpours of rain, with all my belongings, including tent, clothing, and equipment, strapped to the back of my bicycle. The AIDS LifeCycle, in contrast, consisted of over 2,300 riders, raised over 11 million dollars, and was supported by a crew that carries luggage and sets up tent camps for each stop along the way.

Also, friends and family have already come forth saying they would contribute to my stress-inducing goal of raising at least $2,500 in donations. I've never enjoyed asking people for money, but by necessity, I'm ready to get over that. It's easier in some way, since the money isn't for me, but is donated to the LA and SF AIDS foundations to provide funds for HIV/AIDS support programs.

I've also been getting a lot of advice as to how to get my body in shape for this massive undertaking. I'll write a separate post about that.

So, in conclusion, I think that even though I've previously spent 30 days in the saddle, I haven't done anything like this...