The Disclaimer

To all my good friends...welcome to my "Ride Across America" blog!
It's one week before I start "officially" posting updates related to my ride.
Katie and I have joked about how many blogs are all about "making a cheese sandwich":
"Tuesday 5:45PM: made a cheese sandwich....check back tomorrow to see how it tastes".
I'll try to make this one as interesting as possible...once I get rolling on April 23.
Thanks for all your support! David

Here's Jack!!

Since I may refer to Jack in this blog...here he is. Yes, the tongue is always out!
Katie has been working with Pet Rescue by Judy (a local no-kill shelter). She's taken in two pitbulls to get them socialized and used to living inside the house. The last one was a Katrina-dog named Norman...an 80 pound duffus with a heart of gold. After finding a suitable home for Norman, she brought Jack home from the shelter...convinced we'd never keep him. Two weeks after we got him...we were hooked. He is now ours.

The magic of rest....

After last week's over-training wakeup call...I knew I was long overdue for a rest period. Last weekend I did 56 fast miles on Saturday...took a nap and ate...then spent the rest of the day doing yard work. Not sure if that was technically taking it easy, but, at least I passed on the usual 112 miles! Sunday I rode a really easy 45 miles with the gang. We barely broke 18mph! Wednesday was our 25th Wedding Anniversary, so I took the day off work (a big rest) and did a 45 mile ride in the morning with the WP YMCA gang. I could tell my legs were responding positively to the decreased mileage. Katie and I spent the day hanging around town...had a glass of wine on Park Avenue with Jack...then a fabulous dinner at Rocco's. I rode this morning and felt really good! I got my power (and my confidence) back! Rest is good!

Training vs. Overtraining

Always a delicate balance! You want to train as hard as you can to be sure you are well prepared. There is,unfortunately, a downside to too much training. After last weekends set of really hard workouts I hit the zone where your body tells you..."you are over training". My Wednesday Night ride is always one of my favorites! Always sprited, even when the racers are in off-season. Usually lots of trash talk leading up to it. I'll go into the office at 4AM in order to make it there for the 6PM start. This Wednesday was NOT fun. The big miles, being sick (and crazy work) I've been putting in without a rest...finally caught up with me. I had nothing in the tank and got dropped from the main group early into the ride. Then got dropped by the second group and,thankfully, managed to hang onto the last few guys...or I'd probably still be out there! The "Roadies" had a field day as you can see by the photo snapped from a forum post. That was not a good day...but, it did make me take some time off the bike and start to taper down my training so I am back in peak form for April 23!

The Party 2!

Thanks to all my good friends and my beautiful wife for being there for me!

The Party!

Friday night...Katie pulled off the ultimate surprise party for me as a combo Birthday/Bon Voyage. It was a great night for good friends! It's a good feeling to know so many people will be rooting for me out there on the road!

Training...the long days are almost over!

This past weekend was really hard! I have been battling a cold for the last 3 weeks. Seems I get a couple days of feeling good...then it hits me again. It was my last set of long days, 112 miles on Saturday (the first 56 with the racers who had no race on the calendar) and 126 on Sunday. Sunday was "Bike Across Florida" (BAF) , which starts in Titusville (on the east coast)and heads north of my hometown of Winter Park and then on to Crystal River on the west coast. I left the house in the dark and rolled towards Titusville hoping to intercept the BAF lead group. I missed them by a couple of minutes...and spent the rest of the day catching people who had been dropped from the group. It was really a solo effort, as I only passed 8-10 other riders all day. The BAF course included a loop around Central Florida's famous "hills"...Sugarloaf Mountain and Buckhill Road. I hit the hills at mile 95 and my legs were pretty shot. The southeast wind was howling and I knew it would not be an easy ride back home (to the east). I needed to get home, so I hadn't planned to stop. 1 Gatorade, 1 Cliff bar, 2 Jocolat Larabars and a couple bottles of water. I barely made it! 126 miles in 6 hours and 20 minutes...the hard way! It was a good "mental toughness" day...alone and against the wind. I am sure there will be days on this trip that will be much harder! Thank goodness for aerobars! The bike is back with Jere @ Loco Motion this week for a new bottom bracket. I can only imagine how crazy listening to the old one creaking for 32 days would have made me.