Training for the TdE

Yes, that title is correct - TdE not TdF. I crossed paths with Tom on Sunday (we hadn't seen each other for maybe a month) and he informed me that he is headed for England in about ten days and will be doing a Tour of England. And he is joining Harry (who just finished a ride in California) and Peter. Peter, it should be noted was apparently not satisfied with the TdI (tour of Israel) and needs to add another country to his summer activity list....And so Tom and I met up this morning and headed out into the first truly beautiful day we have had in two or three weeks and hit the roads and hills we spent so much time on last year getting ready for the cross country. We did 77 miles with 4500 feet of climbing and consumed 5500 calories - only thing we could not do was ride on the left side of the road, that is frowned on in New Jersey. In any case, Tom is fresh off the week-long, 500 mile Anchor House ride, seems to be very fit and I am very envious of his upcoming adventure. I am sure we will get a couple more rides in before he hops on the plane and crosses the pond to join Harry and Peter. Meantime I am looking forward to my first century of the summer coming up in a couple of weeks and hoping that this ridiculous weather - temps of 90 and above and humidity almost as high - will give us a break that day. A year ago I wouldn't have given myself much of a chance on a century so, weather be damned, I'm looking forward to it. And, finally, riding together for 77 miles we reviewed and rehashed most of the cross country adventure. In the end you remember the climbs, the centuries, the weather, the funky little places we stopped for lunch - but we agreed that we were exceptionally lucky with the 20 or so people we rode with for those many days: a truly great group of people and they made the journey the fun thing it was. My hat is off to you Tom, Harry, and Peter - I wish I was joining you.

The end of the Gatorade...

I've been off the bike for the last few days but not for the usual reasons: not for the heat (which reached 103 a couple days ago), no mechanical problems, and certainly not for rain (we've had none). I have had the mother of all toothaches starting last Saturday night and finally starting to abate a bit over the last couple of days. The short version of this little saga is that I had some work done on three side-by-side molars last week - all had decay under crowns, something that apparently is never supposed to happen. My dentist blames it exclusively on the Gatorade that I drink so much of while biking. By last Monday the pain was so bad that I was using some left-over percocet (same stuff they gave me in the hospital last year) and I put in an emergency call to the dentist on the holiday. With prescriptions for both antibiotics and pain killers I could finally say today that I felt like a normal human being again with just a dull ache in my lower jaw. And today I saw the endonist who informed me that I will probably have at least one root canal before any other work is done - oh joy. And so the last bottle of Gatorade has gone in the trash and from now on it will be water and Endurolytes - the refreshing taste of Orange G-ade is a thing of the past. And today I was back out for forty or so miles and found out I can actually survive quite nicely without all the sugars and acids. Thank God a good beer is still a good thing.

Blue skies...and more.

Today was one of those absolutlely perfect days for cycling. Low humidity, a slight breeze, and perfectly blue skies-not a cloud in sight. The Anchor House ride is coming up and I am not going to be doing it this year and the cross country is over for the year-I didn't do that either. So I get on the bike for the sheer love of cycling and that was truly my feeling today. I did 65 miles with about 3700 hundred feet of climbing (including a couple of 18-20% grade for a short duration) and felt like I could have done a century. I think the hardest part of the end of the xc ride (aside from the violent circumstances) was the end of the kind of fantasy feeling that life was only all about getting up, getting on the bike, and just riding to the next destination and knowing that that was our only responsibility every single day. It is, of course, a kind of fantasy but also a wonderful experience. My mind was running full tilt today with thoughts of XC 09 partly because I had a phone call yesterday from Barbie Rojas, one of our 09 colleagues who is doing the full ride over three year segments. I plan to do the final segment myself next year as does she. So, of course, I rode today thinking of last year's ride and scheming and planning for the completion in 2011. We did agree that we would be thinking of this next 11 months as training for the final stage. I may have said this before but if I could truly bring life to fantasy and dreams I would start again in Los Angeles and do the entire cross country trip in one act. For a lot of reasons that is fantasy however and Champaign to Boston is far more practical and doable. In the meantime I've got plenty of reason to ride and prepare and it is a bonus to think there will be an 09'r on the ride with me.