2nd
Learning about The Next Big Ride
I’m slowly moving towards getting ready to start my training. I’m calling this my “prep phase”.
My goal with this phase is to come to an understanding of what I’m going to do, both in terms of what the ride will require of me - mentally and physically - but also logistically.
I’m doing a lot more solo riding now - well, to be clear - I’m not doing a lot of riding, but the riding that I am doing is mostly solo. I figure that getting used to riding by myself is going to be a big part of my training.
I spend a lot of my time during the ride focused on my technique, cadence, pedal stroke, etc., but also thinking through what this whole thing will be about. This past weekend, I feel like I got a lot closer to understanding the goal as I “meditated” about the endurance characteristics that I would need to work on. I realized that even though endurance will be key to a strong finish, that this ride is actually a race, against the clock, but a race nonetheless.
If I don’t finish in less than 35:43, then I will have effectively “lost”.
While I won’t need to tear up the road with a blistering pace in order to accomplish my goal time of less than 30 hours, I will still need to focus on building steady long-distance speed in order to “win”.
This might sound obvious, but I really feel it was a big step forward for me in terms of really understanding the true nature of The Next Big Ride.
I’m going to be doing some more learning later this week. Larry and I are going to go for a coffee and discuss sleep deprivation. Larry is one of the few people I know that have finished solo RAAM. He’s also a great guy and I’m really looking forward to hearing his thoughts on various aspects of The Next Big Ride.
Posted at 21:42 - Comments (View)
