We're back home now. this probably won't be too long as I'm hunting and pecking as I can't push any keys with my left pinky...
Lisa, Ally, and I, along with Lisa's mom and dad, did the Bridge Walk today. What a glutton for punishment I am! My legs hurt more after the 5 mile bridge walk and the 4 miles to get back and forth to the bus and camp than they did after 325 or so miles of riding. They felt fine this morning but were dying this evening... It was a neat experience and I wouldn't have missed it for the world!
I'm feeling better this evening. I was pretty fatigued this afternoon but a dip in the pool wiped that out. Overall, I'm about 5 pounds down from what I was when I left. That would be great if it was all fat but I know a lot of it is dehydration. I did not drink as much as I should have during the ride and today's walk. Hopefully some of it stays off but I'm not counting on it.
All right, here are the totals for the ride:
Day One, 72 miles, 16.5 mph, 4300 calories
Day Two, 84 miles, 15.3 mph, 5100 calories
Day Three, 100 miles, 16.2 mph, 5700 calories
Day Four, 71 miles, 14.8 mph, 4200 calories
Total: 327 miles, 19300 calories
There's a rumor that Mel was already looking for committments for next year, maybe the East route for a change of scenery. I probably will consider it highly but it's too early right now. I don't even want to think about a long ride right now. Plus I need to get some feelings back in my fingers!
Later,
Rob
Monday, September 1, 2008
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Last day
Made it! Kind of a rough day today. Important thing is I made it. Blew two tubes and one tire. More hills than I thought. Beautiful country, though. Day ended with a polar bear shower at Mackinaw High School.
Thanks to all who we're praying for me. It was a great experience. Thanks to Lisa and Ally for making the trip up to pick me up and also to Andy and Danyalle for stopping by to cheer me in.
I'll write more about the adventure soon.
Thanks,
Rob
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with Nextel Direct Connect
Thanks to all who we're praying for me. It was a great experience. Thanks to Lisa and Ally for making the trip up to pick me up and also to Andy and Danyalle for stopping by to cheer me in.
I'll write more about the adventure soon.
Thanks,
Rob
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with Nextel Direct Connect
Saturday, August 30, 2008
3rd day
Hi! Sorry this will be short tonight. Survived the long day and even did the extra 8 miles to make it over 100. Felt good for the first 60 but the pesto on the chicken sandwich at lunch did me in. Felt awful for the last 40.
Had to walk up the Wall but it was huge. Most people were slaloming back and forth across the road. My gearing doesn't go low enough so I had to clip out and walk.
The body is holding up well with the exception of my left hand. I feel like a cripple as my pinky and ring fingers are numb and I have no contol of them. Thank God it isn't my right hand so I can still shift my rear cassette. Nothing serious as I hear it's just a pinched nerve.
Anyway, I'm exhausted so i'm going to sleep. Everyone else is already snoring so this could be interesting!
In His name,
Rob
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with Nextel Direct Connect
Had to walk up the Wall but it was huge. Most people were slaloming back and forth across the road. My gearing doesn't go low enough so I had to clip out and walk.
The body is holding up well with the exception of my left hand. I feel like a cripple as my pinky and ring fingers are numb and I have no contol of them. Thank God it isn't my right hand so I can still shift my rear cassette. Nothing serious as I hear it's just a pinched nerve.
Anyway, I'm exhausted so i'm going to sleep. Everyone else is already snoring so this could be interesting!
In His name,
Rob
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with Nextel Direct Connect
Friday, August 29, 2008
2nd day
Hello! Well, the second day is in the books! We're all still walking and overall it was a great day. Just finished a quick massage so i'm good to go for tomorrow.
It started off with a light rain this morning before we left. It cleared up after breakfast but was foggy and humid for the first few hours. It was a nice day except for the 10-15 mph headwind. Thank God for drafting!
Tomorrow was supposed to be our 100 mile day but I found out with the new route it,s only 92. Kind of bummed about that but I,m sure I'll get over it. Tomorrow is an early morning so i'm going to hit the rack.
Talk at you tomorrow!
Rob
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with Nextel Direct Connect
It started off with a light rain this morning before we left. It cleared up after breakfast but was foggy and humid for the first few hours. It was a nice day except for the 10-15 mph headwind. Thank God for drafting!
Tomorrow was supposed to be our 100 mile day but I found out with the new route it,s only 92. Kind of bummed about that but I,m sure I'll get over it. Tomorrow is an early morning so i'm going to hit the rack.
Talk at you tomorrow!
Rob
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with Nextel Direct Connect
Thursday, August 28, 2008
1st day
Well, the first day is in the books! It went pretty well overall. We went 72 miles today with most of it flat. We averaged about 16.5 mph overall not including our many stops. This is a little faster than I anticipated but we had a tailwind part of the way. We only had about 1400 feet of total ascent so that made for the fast ride. We'll probably have that in two hills on days 3 and 4.
The weather was beautiful with partly cloudy skies and temps in the lower 80's. A beautiful day to ride through the countryside.
I did have one flat tire due to the chip seal so that made life interesting. No SAG vehicle around so I changed my first tire on the road. Most of the roads were good for the most part except for about a five mile stretch that literally shook the life out of me. It was so bad that not only did I have a headache but it exhausted me to the point I was ready to turn off and ride an extra 5 miles out of the way to find decent roads.
Well, I'll sign off for now. Thanks for the prayers and support!
Rob
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with Nextel Direct Connect
The weather was beautiful with partly cloudy skies and temps in the lower 80's. A beautiful day to ride through the countryside.
I did have one flat tire due to the chip seal so that made life interesting. No SAG vehicle around so I changed my first tire on the road. Most of the roads were good for the most part except for about a five mile stretch that literally shook the life out of me. It was so bad that not only did I have a headache but it exhausted me to the point I was ready to turn off and ride an extra 5 miles out of the way to find decent roads.
Well, I'll sign off for now. Thanks for the prayers and support!
Rob
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with Nextel Direct Connect
Monday, August 25, 2008
Ready or not, it's almost time!
Well, Thursday is the day! Ready or not, here we come. The training is done and it's time to depend on Him fully now. I want to thank Lisa for not bailing me out of this and allowing me the time and expense to do it. It has been a growing experience and I'm glad to say that I'm addicted to biking.
Training has went well overall. I look back from where I started out this spring and am amazed at what God has done with my body and my attitude. I went for my first 20 mile ride (without hills) and thought I was going to die. Now 20 miles is a cool down the day after a long ride. I used to tell myself that I wasn't an athlete and this was crazy. Now I believe I can do this and have a positive attitude more often. I'm down over 25 pounds from February. There's over 800 miles on my bike and after this week it will be almost 1200. My goal for next year is 3000 during the riding season!
Thank you to everyone that has donated to Pray America. While short of the $5000, we have raised almost $2000 for the widows and orphans of Guatemala. That money will go toward either the feeding programs or widow housing as I've left it up to them to decide how to disperse it. I will give a final total after the ride as donations are still coming in. I want to thank the donor that donated the complete widow house and, by doing so, committed me to doing a Century ride. Make sure you get your bike ready because the part I forgot to mention is that the donor has to ride it also! :)
I'm not a big scripture-quoting person, but Philippians 4:13 is what keeps running through my head these days: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I know that this verse pertains to much more than just what I want to apply it to. Sometimes I just want to apply it to this ride and say that I can handle everything else on my own. He's asking me to let Him lead the way but too many times I've said no... I'm working on this in my prayer life but it has been a struggle. Your prayers are coveted for this ride and my faith. If you have any favorite verses that might apply, I'd appreciate hearing them. Just put them in the comments section.
As far as my rides have gone, it's actually been a pretty good couple of weeks. We went camping at Wilderness State Park by Mackinaw the weekend of the 16th. I did a 50 miler on Friday and a 75 on Sunday all by myself. This is kind of cool as I wasn't even drafting anyone! The 50 miler was tough as I went a route that looked like a "good" biking route on the map but in reality it was filled with hills with a headwind on the way home. Now I remember why this is ski country! I should have known I made a mistake when the two people biking behind me kept going straight when I turned south. Turns out that the route they went was where I'd be on Sunday.
The 75 mile ride was really neat as I found the DALMAC markings on the previous ride and figured out the route we'd be finishing up on. I rode the last 30 miles of it and it is just gorgeous, and flat! I saw multiple deer and turkeys, and even saw a black bear run across the road about 100 yards ahead of me. My nephew Max doesn't believe me as he's always telling me bear hunting stories about the hunts he and his dad have done, but I pinky swore on it! I couldn't get a picture of it as it was really thick where he went in but I could hear him thrashing through the woods.
I did follow the route backwards as I drove home from camping. It got quite a bit hillier after I got past where I turned around. I foresee walking some portions of them or possibly taking a break mid-hill as there are some long ones. But I'm looking at the positive side, as most of those hills have a big downhill on the other side where I get to rest!
This past weekend was a "winding down" weekend as the marathoners call it. Thank goodness as I was not feeling it on Saturday! Thirty miles of medium hills and it felt like I was riding through water instead of air. Maybe it was just the humidity or the fact that I didn't sleep much the night before, but it was not a lot of fun. Sunday's 20 miler was much better as we did our Grand Valley route. I can tell I'm 40 now as the mind is going. We talked about the time we were leaving the day before and I showed up 15 minutes late and missed the group. I finally caught up with them and Bill rode with me so I could get my 20 miles in.
As I mentioned before, the training is done. No more biking before Thursday. Just need to finish packing and some minor tuning of the bike. Surprisingly, I'm not nervous right now. Thursday morning may be different, but I'm just going to enjoy it. I think it's going to be a lot like the time I spend hunting: plenty of time to reflect on the past, pray about the present, and wonder about the future. Maybe that's why I like biking so much. Even though I'm usually biking with a group, it's a lot of time alone with my thoughts.
Training has went well overall. I look back from where I started out this spring and am amazed at what God has done with my body and my attitude. I went for my first 20 mile ride (without hills) and thought I was going to die. Now 20 miles is a cool down the day after a long ride. I used to tell myself that I wasn't an athlete and this was crazy. Now I believe I can do this and have a positive attitude more often. I'm down over 25 pounds from February. There's over 800 miles on my bike and after this week it will be almost 1200. My goal for next year is 3000 during the riding season!
Thank you to everyone that has donated to Pray America. While short of the $5000, we have raised almost $2000 for the widows and orphans of Guatemala. That money will go toward either the feeding programs or widow housing as I've left it up to them to decide how to disperse it. I will give a final total after the ride as donations are still coming in. I want to thank the donor that donated the complete widow house and, by doing so, committed me to doing a Century ride. Make sure you get your bike ready because the part I forgot to mention is that the donor has to ride it also! :)
I'm not a big scripture-quoting person, but Philippians 4:13 is what keeps running through my head these days: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I know that this verse pertains to much more than just what I want to apply it to. Sometimes I just want to apply it to this ride and say that I can handle everything else on my own. He's asking me to let Him lead the way but too many times I've said no... I'm working on this in my prayer life but it has been a struggle. Your prayers are coveted for this ride and my faith. If you have any favorite verses that might apply, I'd appreciate hearing them. Just put them in the comments section.
As far as my rides have gone, it's actually been a pretty good couple of weeks. We went camping at Wilderness State Park by Mackinaw the weekend of the 16th. I did a 50 miler on Friday and a 75 on Sunday all by myself. This is kind of cool as I wasn't even drafting anyone! The 50 miler was tough as I went a route that looked like a "good" biking route on the map but in reality it was filled with hills with a headwind on the way home. Now I remember why this is ski country! I should have known I made a mistake when the two people biking behind me kept going straight when I turned south. Turns out that the route they went was where I'd be on Sunday.
The 75 mile ride was really neat as I found the DALMAC markings on the previous ride and figured out the route we'd be finishing up on. I rode the last 30 miles of it and it is just gorgeous, and flat! I saw multiple deer and turkeys, and even saw a black bear run across the road about 100 yards ahead of me. My nephew Max doesn't believe me as he's always telling me bear hunting stories about the hunts he and his dad have done, but I pinky swore on it! I couldn't get a picture of it as it was really thick where he went in but I could hear him thrashing through the woods.
I did follow the route backwards as I drove home from camping. It got quite a bit hillier after I got past where I turned around. I foresee walking some portions of them or possibly taking a break mid-hill as there are some long ones. But I'm looking at the positive side, as most of those hills have a big downhill on the other side where I get to rest!
This past weekend was a "winding down" weekend as the marathoners call it. Thank goodness as I was not feeling it on Saturday! Thirty miles of medium hills and it felt like I was riding through water instead of air. Maybe it was just the humidity or the fact that I didn't sleep much the night before, but it was not a lot of fun. Sunday's 20 miler was much better as we did our Grand Valley route. I can tell I'm 40 now as the mind is going. We talked about the time we were leaving the day before and I showed up 15 minutes late and missed the group. I finally caught up with them and Bill rode with me so I could get my 20 miles in.
As I mentioned before, the training is done. No more biking before Thursday. Just need to finish packing and some minor tuning of the bike. Surprisingly, I'm not nervous right now. Thursday morning may be different, but I'm just going to enjoy it. I think it's going to be a lot like the time I spend hunting: plenty of time to reflect on the past, pray about the present, and wonder about the future. Maybe that's why I like biking so much. Even though I'm usually biking with a group, it's a lot of time alone with my thoughts.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Last Big Ride before the DALMAC
This past weekend we did 65 miles on Saturday, the furthest yet. I felt really good afterwards. In fact, Lisa and I went to see a play and went out for dinner that evening. The real pain came on Sunday. I did 14 easy miles in the morning by myself before church and then another 21 that afternoon with Clint and Adam. The wind was blowing something fierce out of the NW. So that's 100 miles for a weekend.
Man, do I hope that the weather is dry and calm for DALMAC. That winds sucks the energy out of a guy in a heartbeat. It doesn't help that I have a head/chest cold right now. Loved China but the jet lag wore me down and now I'm sick. Gotta love the meds though!
Man, do I hope that the weather is dry and calm for DALMAC. That winds sucks the energy out of a guy in a heartbeat. It doesn't help that I have a head/chest cold right now. Loved China but the jet lag wore me down and now I'm sick. Gotta love the meds though!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)