I spent some time this morning breaking down my "ambitious goal" of cycling 4500km this year. When I first conceived this a few weeks ago, it seemed to one of my craziest ides ever, seeing that although I am quite passionate about cycling as a sport and a mode of transportation, I do not even resemble an athletic person. As it turns out, this goal may be more achievable than I have first thought. Here is the break down the distances of all the rides that I plan to go on:
| EVENT | Distance (km) | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Ride for Heart | 100 | First Sunday in June, extra loop on the DVP |
| TNTO | 340 | Two days during the Father's Day weekend in June |
| Love in Motion | 1900 | Late July to early August |
| BR training rides | 600 | I am not riding with on the Bike Rally this year, but I will likely to train with all the other participants. The "planned" rides include: Finch-Markham Warden -- Toronto Zoo Warden -- Pickering Kipling -- Terra Cotta Warden--Washburn Finch-Kleinberg Finch-Keswick and Kipling-Inglewood |
| Ride to Work | 1200 | Between April to September, minus 2 weeks when I'm on LiM, once a week |
| Home - Jacksons Point | 75 | Attending church group retreat for one day?? |
| Home - Mississauga | 55 | Can do this a few times to visit my wife's uncle |
| Home - church | 50 | With detour, can do this every few weeks when the weather is good. |
But nothing ever works as simply as I plan. The chart is only for if I don't do anything too extreme. That said, my wife will probably want me to cut down my time and distance on Love in Motion, because it comes at a critical time in the summer—the reason will become clear in the coming months. To complicate things further, I have also been discussing with my friend Duncan of the possibility of him doing either the TNTO or the TNT Hairshirt depending on his dragon-boat race schedule. (Both rides are organized by the Toronto Bicycling Network; TNTO goes from Mississauga Square One to Niagara Falls and back as an overnight trip; the TNT Harishirt does it in one day) I told Duncan that if he does the Hairshirt, I'd go with him—this way we get to draft behind one another, and we will save a lot of energy. And since I also promised Maciej to do the TNTO with him, it is possible that I will do both events. In either case, I'd better do a lot more rides to and from work in April & May, as soon as the weather warms up. The TBN website suggests that anyone attempting to do the Hairshirt should ride ~300km/week in the months prior to the event. If I just "train" at 250km/week (riding to and from work everyday, rain or shine) April and May, that's 8wk * 250km/wk = 2000km...that's already almost 1/2 way to my goal. I'll be tracking my "ride progress" through my bike computer and my Strava app this year.
(A note about the "featured image" along with this post; I will not be riding a touring bike like that.)