The weather was just too nice to get caught indoors today: about 10 degrees C, not a breath of wind and cloudy with sunny breaks. A few layers, a wind breaker, my trusty booties and I'm off for my first ride of 2013.
I hit the road and took one of my usual short routes: about 30kms with some good hills thrown in for one's training pleasure. (I know, as I mentioned in a post last summer, it's a sickness. Please forgive me. ) Anyway, the objective today was simply to get back in the saddle. Check: objective accomplished. The other objective (my wife's personal favourite) was also quite simple: return in one piece. Check: objective also accomplished.
I really dislike riding on the trainer. It's just not the same as doing the real thing. So when the conditions are right, I just have to hit the road. No surprisingly, I passed at least half a dozen other riders, similarly motivated.
But indoor riding is something I'm going to have get used to starting this coming week. You see, I have some training goals to achieve and waiting until the weather warms up and the roads dry up just won't cut it. My goal is to be able to ride between 100-150 kms per day (averaging 25 to 27kms per hour) for 6 days straight by the end of the summer. Going from 30 kms on a day in January to upwards of 150 per day by some day in August/September can't be done without a bit of indoor work before spring.
Why the ambitious goal? An even more ambitious goal looms: ride from Vancouver to Toronto in June 2014.
Google says the distance is 4421km from downtown to downtown. If you click on the little cyclist icon, they estimate 230 hours (that's about 19kms/hour on average) To do the trip in less than 30 days (which is the target), 150kms per day is need. Good grief, that's a lot of riding! I'll be 57 by then. What am I thinking? Anyone want to lay a wager on completion?
Stay tuned to this site for more progress reports and details about the trip.
PS. I will be using the opportunity to raise money for a charity to be revealed later.
