Creative Training - by Jamie

The closer we get to the ride, the tougher it seems to be to get in as much riding as I originally envisioned in our training plan. This is, unfortunately, somewhat opposite of what should be happening. As a result, we've had to get a little creative to keep ourselves in shape even when Amy and I can't get on the bike trail together and do a few hours of riding. Here are a few of the stop-gap training measures that we've employed:

Round and Round
In our original vision, our long rides were going to be on some of the great trails that we have nearby, such as the BWI Loop that does a 12-mile circuit around the Baltimore Washington International Airport, or the Baltimore-Annapolis trail that runs, as you might expect, from Baltimore to Annapolis (or nearly so). However, packing up the bikes and getting to those places eats up time, and time seems to be at a premium these days, what with our son playing baseball now and other warm-weather family activities coming into the picture.

So, the other day I did a 31-mile bike ride around the neighborhood. Literally "around." There's a good 5-mile circular loop with some nice ups and downs that I just kept doing, with an additional trip down and back on the one long, straight trail that runs 4 miles north-south through the neighborhood to break things up. Got a little repetitive at the end, which isn't great for morale, but you do what you gotta do.

Divide and Conquer
Part of our plan for Climate Ride has been to train and ride together--a fun shared adventure. But as time has gotten compressed, and the need for longer rides has come upon us, Amy and I have had to sacrifice a little of the togetherness on our training rides. We'll do part of a ride together, pulling Ray in the trailer, but then one of us will break off and head home with the little guy so that he doesn't throw a fit over spending hours strapped into his "bike choo-choo". Meanwhile, the other biker continues on to get some more miles in.

This past week all three children were with us and we did a divide-and-conquer ride as a family of five. Jarod started a game where we had to think of animals that had other animals in the name (sea horse! sheep dog! elephant seal!), and we had a blast. After six and a half miles, Natalie, Ray, and I dropped off at home so that Amy could do some additional training. Jarod opted to join her, so the two of them got some quality bonding time on their bikes, and Natalie spent time playing with her baby brother while I prepared dinner. It worked out nicely all around, and it even wore out Jarod!

At some point we may go even farther down this path, with one of us starting off alone while the other is home with our son. Then after an hour or two, we all join up for a nice together-portion of the ride. After that, the cyclist who started alone goes home with our son while the second cyclist finishes off another hour or two of training. Not ideal, and spreads things out over a good chunk of the day.

Also along the divide-and-conquer line, Amy has started doing some rides during the day while I'm at work. That's great for her, but leaves me needing a way to keep up with my conditioning.

Stairing into the Abyss
My most creative training technique has been to take a 20-30 minute break at work and go up and down the stairs in my office building. Without a gym membership (or time to use one even if I had it), and with flat feet and bad knees that make running a poor option, I don't have a lot of options for exercise during the workday. However, I do work in a four-story building that has a fairly large number of stairs between each floor. I've managed to create a circuit up and down those stairs, as well as across the floors of the building. There are stairwells at all four corners of the building, so I have several options for how to go from one 4-story climb to the next. Another good thing about the stair climbing is it is good for the leg muscles that are important to biking (or so I tell myself).

Since I started the stair routine, I've worked up to going up and down the 4-story height of the building 8 times, plus a warm-up in the beginning that slowly gets me from bottom to top and then back down. For those who keeping count, that's 36 floors of stair climbing. Though it's not all 36 in one straight shot, it's still quite an accomplishment for me. And I think I've only gotten one weird look from someone who saw me get to the bottom of the stairwell and then turn around to go back up.

Sometimes, though, you just gotta ride
Soon we'll be doing our first full-day ride. On April 28, we're going to do the Ride to End Hunger in Calvert County. The event has several loops of different lengths, but we'll be doing the big one: the metric century. That's 100 km (or 63 miles for those still on the English system of units). I'm told it's got a goodly number of hills, but that's ok. So do our neighborhood bike trails. Seriously--I mapped the neighborhood trails with Runkeeper, and then compared elevation changes to those posted online for the Calvert Country event loops. Our neighborhood actually has some bigger hills, just not as many of them. Well, maybe there would be if I did 63 miles on that 5-mile loop. Anyway, I think we'll be ready enough.

So that's where we're at now. Only four more weeks to go until the mighty Climate Ride. One way or another, we'll be ready for it.