How is it that July is almost half way over?! I'm sitting here typing this up with this Saturday being the Total 200 ride. You read that right, 200 miles in one day. I've been building miles and getting as ready as I can. A few weeks ago I did my first century ride. Of coarse that is the day that the temperature gets up to 98 degrees in DC and I spend 52 miles riding by myself on hilly roads. After 100.2 miles and 5,300 calories burned I learned a few things:
1.) I need to eat much much more than I did on the ride. I should be eating between 300 and 400 calories an hour. I had a grand total of maybe 500 or 600 calories over the whole ride.
2.) When it's hot, you can't drink enough. I went through at least 9 bottles of water, each of them being about 25 oz. Seven of them were water, one was Gatorade.
I'm excited for this ride but I think I'm more nervous about this ride than I was for the half Ironman I did last year.
On a positive note, I've been doing consistent group rides and there as been some talks of joining a cycling team as a basic rider starting at the bottom (Cat 4/5 rider) and seeing what comes of it. I'm going to be looking into racing in the Mid-Atlantic area next year, as well as a few races that are close to my hometown. I'll see what happens and I'll hopefully get some good races in and win some races.
Another goal for next year will be Chicago Marathon! With the 10 miler and half marathon coming in the next few months, they will be good thoughts on how the marathon would go.
Here are some new updates for the racing season.
July:
July 17th: www.total200.com double century bike ride! 200 miles - 100 miles out, lunch, 100 miles back
August:
August 14th – 21st: Brigantine Family vacation (Brigantine, NJ)
August 29th: Annapolis 10 Miler Run(Annapolis, MD)
September:
September 12th: Parks Half Marathon, Rockville, MD to Bethesda, MD
November: TBD (Vacation in Ohio for Thanksgiving hopefully)
December: TBD (Queens, NY for Christmas break)
