I rode 1000 miles between August 7th and November 1st of this year

This was prompted by a test and an opportunity. My friend and neighbor Nancy is one of the toughest, bravest people I have ever met. She recently beat cancer and her son is my son’s best friend. To celebrate her 50th birthday she decided to celebrate with a “Fifty Fitness Challenge” open to her circle of family and friends. We got to choose whatever goal we wanted and any activity we preferred. I opted to test myself on a lofty goal.

This being a “choose your own adventure” type of situation, I wanted to really test myself. I had 12 weeks so if I averaged 80-100 miles a week then 1k was possible. I knew that life and family commitments would inevitably get in the way so I was a bit frightened by this goal.

That’s a good thing. Your goals should scare you a little. It should be a situation where failure is a likely scenario. Having a specific goal means that you have a specific point of success and a specific point of failure. People don’t like to fail so they often set out on a vague goal like “get in shape” or “lose some weight”. Not good enough. Get granular, get specific.

I also have not done any sort of fitness event since the 2017 LA Marathon. It was high time I got my act together. I sometimes have to remind myself if my word actually means anything. If I say I am going to do something and proclaim it to the world, will I follow through? This was a test of my word and will.

Nancy started a FB group where I could post my progress and not feel like I was showing off. Well, I was showing off a little but it was all in the context of the group name! Away we go.

August 7th 2022

I am fortunate enough to live by some nice bike paths. Monrovia is close to the Santa Fe Dam and I have easy access to the San Gabriel River trail, which stretches all the way down to Seal Beach.

I am about 5 miles north of Peck Road Park, which leads directly to the Rio Hondo bike path, which goes south into Whittier Narrows, parallel to the San Gabriel bike path. You have the option to cut across to the San Gabriel path or continue south where the Rio Hondo path merges with the LA River path that takes you down to Long Beach. Since my goal was to accumulate lots of miles I opted for little to no climbing these next few months and a good road bike to cover all those miles. I ride a Cannondale SuperSix.

This is my bike for long miles. I also have a 1989 Schwinn Super Sport that my uncle gave me. Road bikes are excellent for miles and speed. Hybrid and mountain bikes are not as fast and take longer to gather miles. The nice thing about carbon road bikes is they absorb the asphalt you ride on so you can ride longer with less pain in your hands and rear end.

That said, even the best-made bike is a human torture device. The miles can wear on you mentally and physically. Casual riding is fine for anyone, but to put the kind of miles I was looking to put on would take more than a casual approach. I was not in terrible shape, but I was nowhere near where I was when I did my triathalon in 2016.

You start a long ride by drinking 16 oz. of water before you get on the bike. You then fill up the two water bottles and drink them throughout the ride. One bottle every 15 miles on a 30-mile ride. You do not want to cramp, it sucks. I wear a full kit and lycra and gloves. You only need to ride 20 miles without padded shorts to know why cyclists wear all that gear. Nothing is more comfortable on a big ride than breathable material.

The 30-mile loop from Monrovia down to Whittier Narrows, across to the San Gabriel path headed north to the Santa Fe Dam was going to be the centerpiece of my riding. 30 miles that I can do in 2 1/2 hours on mostly bike paths with little car traffic. Since I was going solo most of the time this was the safest bet with the most bang for the buck.

We bought a Peloton during the pandemic so that we would not lose our minds indoors. I personally don’t like the spin classes or most of the instructors. No one is really that giddy and I prefer my internal dialogue to their belligerent attempts to motivate me. I do like the scenic rides which give you GoPro footage of these incredible places around the world, like a virtual cycling tour of the Earth. I would put on an audiobook and just ride for 30-60 minutes most days. This would give me extra miles during the week.

There are definite downsides to indoor cycling. It’s not just that you are moving your pedals to go nowhere, the main problem is having to provide constant watts to the bike. Riding an actual bike outdoors is not just pedaling, you can coast, you can ride downhill, you can even turn. You can take it easy or go hard at a moment’s notice. All of this provides you with mini breaks to recover your legs and your heart rate. On an indoor bike, if you aren’t pedaling you are doing nothing. So constant movement is necessary. You can adjust the resistance with a knob but that gets to be a chore after a while so I find that I place the resistance at around “40” and leave it there.

It’s true that you can cover more miles in less time on an indoor bike, but those miles are all hard-earned. I would say 20 miles on an indoor bike feels like 30-40 miles riding outside. That said, it makes you tough and I found my watts increasing steadily as time went on.

For the hour long sessions I would ride at 17-18 mph and then follow up with a 2-3 mile cooldown, effectively giving me 20 miles per session. It was a good formula but the sweat was unbelievable. It was a good way to expend all my energy in about 75 minutes.

Decent first week. I had to keep it up.

8/16/22 plus a 3.4 mile cooldown for 21 miles- 130/ 1,000

Since my ride resembled a dog or a sock puppet I decided to have fun with it. Why not?

That was the first really big ride. Straight down Rio Hondo to the LA River path to Long Beach and back. I took a coffee break in Long Beach while I was down there to recover. I love the bike infrastructure in Long Beach and it’s a cool city to visit. I prefer not driving there though.

So far, so good. 1/4 of the way there. Things can’t go this smoothly, can they?

September 2022

August was a strong start. 300 miles in less than a month was where I wanted to be. I was not expecting a crazy heat wave in September.

I have never rode in heat like this. I usually don’t take a break on this ride but I had to stop an Encanto Park in Duarte about 5 miles away from home for fear of heat stroke. It was not fun and I would no do it again.

I was laying down some watts on that last one. 18 mph for a full hour. I think my legs are coming back.

9/15/22- 460/ 1,000. This one is notable because It was my fastest time on this route so far. This was also notable because I was gone the weekend after this to Cherry Valley on Catalina Island for Julian’s Cub Scout camping trip. No riding until I got back. This was the major obstacle to this goal, but it was alright. We had a good time.

I felt just a tad bit weaker. I still had strong legs though.

Halfway there. At this point the doubts started taking in. Should I have aimed lower? Is this just too much for a dad who had a bunch of lessons to teach every week? I had to engage my steely resolve. This is happening. It has to at this point.

I went after it this time. Beat my previous best time by 2 minutes. I think I “peaked” here. I had cut 30 minutes off my time on this route when I started on August 7th. Try as I might, I never beat this time again during this challenge. That’s okay, I was going for miles, not time. That will come later. Onto October!

October 2022

Here we are. I had done a little over half of my goal with a month to go. Every bit of free time I had must be dedicated to riding. It was going to be gnarly. Let’s do it.

Big rides were the order of the day. I had to do longer rides to make it. This is one of my favorite rides. The entire “Emerald Necklace” down the LA River path to Long Beach, along the Pacific Coast until Seal Beach and up the San Gabriel River path all the way home. I LOVE this ride.

Chilling with a Mocha and breakfast in Long Beach

I did a Tik-Tok. I’m such a Xennial.

October 9th was Ciclavia, Heart of LA. This is where they close down the streets to motor traffic and people can ride, skate and run around LA. It was fun and a little bit of a detour with bit of training thrown in.

I rode my Schwinn and my buddy Steve rode his Fixie. Fun day.

3/4 the way there. Keep going…

10/20/22- 790/ 1,000- Monica and Ethan’s birthday, hence the heart

10/21/22- 810/ 1,000- I just needed the miles, so I rode until I reached 20 on the Peloton. It sucked.

Going in to the final week of the challenge, I was sick of the Peloton. I just had to get out. I was tempted to just go the Rose Bowl and go around and around until I either finished or passed out. I tried on Sunday.

It got boring.

10/24/22- 858.5/ 1,000- Super casual and shorter recovery ride

The weather was quite agreeable this week which made it an easy choice to go out and ride.

The above ride almost didn’t happen. Ethan had gotten sick so I had to stay home with him, which screwed up my plans for a Thursday long ride. By some dumb luck, the internet at Monica’s work went out and she had to come home to work. Awesome, if this ride did not happen I wold have to destroy myself on Sunday, my last day to ride before the end of the competition ended.

I should tell you that I was pretty messed up at this point. My legs were sore and I constantly had to stretch, they are are still sore as I write this. I also got a nice saddle sore from an indoor session with cheap bike shorts. Don’t do it! You want to drape your rear end in luxury, believe me.

With the end in sight, I went all in on Sunday.

1000/ 1000 with a bonus 16 miles for the 16 haters who are reading this right now

It is done

It has been a long while since I attempted something like this. I think that things of this nature are important to me personally. If I did not finish, nothing bad would happen to me. My friends would still accept me, my family would still love me. I might even have free time to do something other than pedal all day.

I just do not want to disappoint myself. That’s the mental exercise here. I can set my mind on a goal and get there. If I can do it here, then I can do it in other places in my life. Be it family, personal, or career goals I have the ability to set out and accomplish things.

You do not have to take advice from me, I am just a dude with saddle sores. My point is that since I am nobody and I did this maybe you could do something significant as well. And then try something else. You may fail, and that’s alright. You would have moved from your current place onto the next place and in the process you would have taken a step towards becoming who you might be. It’s this process of “becoming” that is the point of life if there is any.

I will end with a little rant that I recorded in my delusional haze as the glycogen was drained from my brain and I was trying to get home. (There is some cursing so be warned. I was not at my most eloquent 😆)

Thank you for reading and have a great day. Wheelman out.

Wheelman- My Return to Road Cycling