Phil Rizzuto – “Hey Yogi I think we’re lost.” – Yogi Berra – “Ya, but we’re making great time!”

I thought that a quote from the great Yogi Berra eximplified a bit of my experience with my training plan for this ride. Yogi was born and raised in St. Louis and actually attended the same high school that I did (so did Joe Garagiola who was a neighbor of Yogi). Yogiism’s make a lot of sense to me which might explain a lot of other things.

Anyway I had a definitive plan on how I wanted to train for this ride about a year in advance the actual ride. With this type of effort you have to pyramid your training so that you buildmilheage and speed over time. In my case, the needed to train to be able to train for the ride.

By alte fall of most years, I tend to be in pretty good physical condition from miles on the bike and other exercise. However, there is a rapid drop off in the winter and early spring as I eat more and exercise less. Generally, St. Louis winters tend to be hard on me and I just don’t feel as well as I do the rest of the year. I resolved that this time would be different.

My goal was to stay in great condition over the winter and then build from there. Don’t gain weight and stay active. I would say that I did not meet my ambition but I did somewhat better than other years. I rode the MTB when the weather was bad, did some work on my new trainer and did some yoga but non of that matched my ambition.

Post the Holiday season, I did begin to ratchet up the training, riding outdoors when I could and do some really boring miles on theTour De France  Trainer. I also wanted to do more weights and swimming. alas very little weights and no swimming but I did get in some long rides (seasonally adjusted) and probably averaged 4 days a week of riding.

March and April represent the last two months before the Cross Country ride. My goal was to average 50 miles a day (including days that I don’t ride) up the weights and yoga regime and vary the cycling workouts to include long distance, hill repeats and speed work. I also wanted to do at least one 100 mile ride each month.

I did meet the miles goal (3000) and got in some pretty varied workouts. In my second last week, I did a 110 mile ride that was punctuated by a sever thunderstorm and lack of light (I did the last 11 miles on a trainer). The day before I left for I did hill repeats up and down Art Hill in Forest Park. I think I went up and down 60 times or over 20 miles worth. It is short but steep and on the final climb I sprinted and topped out at 20 mph (most were about 1/2 that).

I had hoped to be somewhat lighter (in terms of weight) coming into LA than I was. However, I think that I am lighter than the two previous attempts.

The preparation for this type of ride though involves more than just physical preparation. One has to get used to endless hours in the saddle every day and a type of mental fatigue that is difficult to describe. If you look ahead at an effort of 3400 miles, it is difficult to comprehend and can be daunting. One trick that I have used is to look backwards at the journey that brought you to this place. The ride is the tip of an iceberg and the miles and conditioning and race experiences of a lifetime is what is beneath the surface. Don’t think of it as “Look how far we have to go”, but instead concentrate on “Look how far I have come!” Not just in terms of the daily ride but your beginning baby steps of only a few miles .

Ultimately, one gets out what one puts in. As one runner once said “The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare.” Two prior rides and that knowledge base has taught me a lot.

The one aspect that I am concerned with (more so than others) is heat. In the past two rides, we had unseasonably warm springs and this year we may have topped 80 once or twice. It generally takes me a few days to acclimate and we hit the desert on day two. On the other hand, we had some really strong winds and I battled those over two months almost every single ride. That which doesn’t kill me makes estranger – hey that might make a good song…..

Anyway I am here in LA just two days before the ride commences and have a few more post planned before we hit the road.

Thanks for reading. Comments and questions welcomed…

 

~Chuck