“The most gratifying part of your goal isn't always necessarily the finish line, but rather the journey that gets you there. The training, the preparation, and the commitment you make to yourself to go beyond in order to achieve your goal.”
September 1, 2013 is the day I made the commitment to ride across the country on my bike in support of the Wounded Warrior Project. The first thing I did was hire a coach to help me train for this "epic ride". While doing some research on long distance cycling I purchased the book Distance Cycling by John Hughes and Dan Kehlenbach. If you want to learn the tricks of the trade for distance cycling than this is the book for you. I ordered and read the kindle version The book covers all aspects from nutrition to stretching and strength training for 100 mile rides to multi-day events. The biggest thing I learned besides riding many miles is the need for off the bike work. All I wanted to do is ride and this book opened my eyes for the need to have a solid core that will help me climb the mountain passes on my ride. This book details what you need to do.
After reading the book I found out that John Hughes is also a coach who works with 20 - 25 athletes a year training for century, double century and brevet rides, multi-day tours, 12- and 24-hour races, qualifiers for the Race Across America (RAAM), solo and team RAAM and other endurance rides and tours. John is also an accomplished cyclist himself having ridden seven 1200 kilometer: Paris-Brest-Paris ’79, ’87, ’91, ’95, ’99, Boston-Montreal-Boston ’92, & the Rocky Mountain ’04. and finished Race Across AMerica (RAAM) in 11 days, 15 hours. Given those credentials I contacted him and he has been prescribing the right mix of workouts that I would never have come up with on my own.
If you want to track my workouts, you can find them at www.trainingpeaks.com/PhilsEpicRide
No comments:
Post a Comment