The Long Training Stretch

Some people think that a marathon or a century ride is hard to do, but the truth is that training for the event is much harder than the event itself. On one day in May, I will ride 100 miles. However, throughout April I should ride 500 miles altogether and do other workouts in training. This is the part of the training that I like to call "all the pain, none of the glory".

At this point, I start scheduling around training. Last week, I was at a 4-day conference (without my bicycle) and was obligated to get in my weekday training by skiing during free hours in the afternoon. And I had to maximize my 3-hour ski workout by skiing telemark through the deepest Utah powder I could find on gnarly black-diamond slopes. Fortunately there were no chairlift lines to slow me down. I certainly felt like I got a workout, but I did not get much sleep during the conference, since I chose to ski during nap time. Seriously, the conference gets started with breakfast at 7am, takes a long break in the afternoon, and then runs until 10pm every night.

Unfortunately, I missed my group training ride this weekend due to the conference, so after catching up on some sleep this morning I had to do a 60-mile ride on my own. I'll blog about that next time.