Sunday, January 12, 2014

A new year, a new beginning

The year has started with a challenge - not a Strava challenge, but the Jimmy challenge. His plan; bike across the country (virtually). It's designed for the Energy Lab really, but if one can get outdoor time, it counts too. Here it is - average 11 hours per week for 17 weeks. This would be the equivalent of the record holder's Ride Across America effort.

I won't ink my name to this one. It's a good idea, but I can't do it, and I won't put myself in the place of doing insane things to make it. I'm too compulsive to sign up for something I can't manage. Best of luck to the rest of you - I hope it inspires you to greater riding heights.

What I have done is pick up the odd Strava challenge here and there. I did complete the 500k riding challenge from Christmas Eve to New Year's Eve. It wasn't that hard, really, and it did accomplish the goal of boosting my ability to pile hours on the bike seat again. I did the bulk of it indoors, unlike Troy, who did all of his outdoors (amazing!).

Today another challenge - do a 130k miles in one ride in January. The Gran Fondo is the first of monthly challenges through the year, and though there is no "prize", it fit into what I needed to do anyway. There are two swim meets this week, which means I will lose two riding days. By getting 81 of my 120 weekly goal in one day, I've cut the remaining rides of the week down to one or two. That should be easily manageable.

This is a very unusual year so far. EVERYONE is riding! I can't wait to see how it pans out for the upcoming riding season.

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