So, I’m a 50ish guy, did about 150 miles of training this year before RAGBRAI, and did every mile and every hill of RAGBRAI, and felt – NOTHING! I don’t get it. I wasn’t sore or beat, or anything. I just went out, did my miles, came into camp, took a shower, socialized, had dinner, and that was it. I was surprised myself, but I really did nothing special for RAGBRAI and was worried. I had a massage one night (made the appointment before RAGBRAI, and the masseuse thought it odd that I had nothing special to work on).
Oh well. Count my blessings I guess.
26 Replies
I cummute 14 miles roundtrip to work, 7 of it uphill home. After it gets cold i move indoors and do 2 to 3 spin classes aweek ( hate the cold or i would cummute all winter). Come spring i load my panniers and do the commute and that gives me 800 miles of loaded riding before heading to Iowa. So if that is training that is my way of training.
This is a point that came to my mind this year as friends “couldn’t train” struggled. Yes they made it in and had a good time. What I couldn’t fathom is that I put in over 1200 miles since I got my bike off the trainer, not for training, but because I love to ride. Yes, you can do it, but why do you do it if you don’t love to ride your bike?
I was a first time rider this year – Wed & Thurs.
Riding the hills into Grinnell Thurs made me realize that I can stay in a taller gear on the KC trails I’ve ridden the past 10 years / quit “babying myself” by downshifting excessively.
Hills? What hills? I don’t remember no stiking hills, LOL!!!!!
Mich – I’m going to nominate you for the “Hank Stamper Award”, as I’m currently reading Ken Kesey’s “Sometimes a Great Notion” :-)
D.AMN, now I’m going to have to read a book, LOL!!!!!!
training? we are always training. That is what my good friend Annie said. I love to ride, I love to train. So I plan a long ride and I go train for it. Ahhh…I need to get on my bike! We rode the HHH last weekend….good stuff. They let us start early b/c it was soooo hot.
RAGBRAI and Ken Kesey . . just imagine the posibilities
I agree 100% about the training. It is highly over-rated. I will say that the better fit you are the more enjoyable the ride, but certainly not required to complete the ride. If you are a reasonably fit person on a daily basis you can easily complete the ride. That said, the difficulty of the ride depends a bit upon the route that particular year. The further south you go the harder the ride due to constant hills. The bottom line is to each his/her own as to how they want to ride the ride and train.
I trained pretty well for the ride, except for the last week, and had a very difficult first day (heat exhaustion and not eating/drinking very well.) Had to go home on day 2. But there have been other years where I didn’t train well at all and sailed through the ride all week. Oh well. Davey, glad to hear from you on the forum. Also happy to see that you’re still using that old avatar with the “G Jacket.”…ha!!! Cheers.