Right on, ride on

Happy (belated) Birthday, America!

Last year I hiked some of the Presidential Mountains in New Hampshire in recognition of our Declaration of Independence . This year I joined a group for camping and hiking in the Adirondacks, and later visited my parents for a couple of days to catch the fireworks at Boldt Castle in the 1000 Islands.

When I first heard of the plans for the camping trip began I was overjoyed. I grew up in the northern foothills of the Adirondack mountains in upstate New York. This is a familiar area to me and one that I missed many opportunities while growing up and living around.

It is impossible to grow up where I did without some degree of camping; however, my family tended to stop outdoor activities there and not participate in many of the other mountain-based experiences: hiking, rafting, skiing/snowboarding, snowmobiling, hunting, or cycling.

My experiences growing up with biking there ended when I was able to start driving a car. The nearest real grocery store was 10+ miles away, as was the nearest movie theater and bowling alley. The farthest I rode a bike back then was less than 10 miles in a single trip, and it might have been to get to the baseball field for practice during those questing couple of years where I tried every sport my school had to offer. (I stuck with soccer throughout high school, but even so I have never really been much into sports.) I only biked around town – in hindsight I see that I missed an opportunity to get ridiculously strong at hill climbing.
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At last. At long last. The training, the preparation, the nervous anticipation; it was all for something.

On May 16th I set out at 9:30AM to ride 100 miles. Six weeks prior to that day I began my training in earnest, building on a physical foundation that the last two+ years of riding my bike around Boston had sculpted.

I followed a plan I found which recommended performing long rides on weekends, increasing the distance each week until two weeks out. Since I did plenty of riding around during the mild winter we had this year I was able to start part of the way into the program.

First was a (roughly) 30-miler. The following weekend I went on a ride of opportunity: in the middle of the night I did a modified 50-mile route the Marathon was set to take several hours later. The next weekend I punched in 57 miles going around the Nagog Pond in Acton. Next up was a Metric Century achieving 68 mile ride that I stitched together from two smaller routes. Having done more than 65% of the total distance I planned the next ride to be a shorter 50 miles to Walden Pond and the DeCordova Sculpture Park, which is a much recommended way to ready oneself for…

a Century Ride:
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This weekend’s ride started on Saturday morning. I began it a bit later in the morning while I waited for some rain to pass and, as designed, the ride was shorter than last week’s. After the rain moved on it became a very nice day, and perhaps a bit too nice as I opted not to put on any sunscreen and now have somewhat reddened shoulders and arms to remind me to apply it in the future.

I chose a Minuteman Bikeway extension ride that went from the Bedford end and hit Walden Pond and the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park. I haven’t been to either location and have been wanting to visit each for the last few years. Added bonus: Hanscom Airforce Base – the first airport I’ve ridden to.
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