The Show Must Go On

Three hours west of Knoxville, in Nashville, there is a local breakfast nook called The Pancake Pantry. At the Pancake Pantry, their slogan is "rain, snow or shine, there's always a line." The same goes for our training; rain, snow, cold, hot....the show must go on and we must still ride! Training is going well and we are preparing both mentally and physically for our 50 mile ride this Sunday, our longest to date.

Hopefully if we can do 50 miles on Sunday with a relatively uneventful conclusion than we will be on a good track for 105 in Sonoma next month. Our longest training ride that we will complete before the actual ride is 70 miles, per our training plan. I mention that we hope this Sunday will be "uneventful" because last Sunday was not. The meteorologists were wrong once again when they predicted a break from 10a-2p in the week long monsoon that has hit Knoxville. We started off in a light mist that soon turned into a downpour. Ten miles into this ride, I hit an uneven part of pavement and me and the Trek both went skidding across the pavement at 15mph. I think we came to a complete stop around 10 feet from where the fall began and I immediately rose to my feet relatively uninjured. My bruises and sore right shoulder are all healing well and that makes the "fall count" for Jessica and I 1-1.

Notes of Interest

• Although not yet noted on our website, we have hit $7500 in fundraising, well over our goal. My personal goal has been $10,000 for ten years of diabetes but that is likely unrealistic, however, we will keep plugging away.
• Additional pictures have been loaded onto the album in the column to the right of this entry.

Training Full Speed Ahead

One week down, 17 to go. We believe that our official training schedule for the ride is going to be a 12 week program, however, the catch is that this program assumes that you can already ride 20 miles on a bike "comfortably." What does 20 "comfortable" miles on a bike feel like? We do not know yet but hopefully we'll be able to figure that out over the next month as we work our way up to 20 and then move into regular "long" rides leading up to 105 on June 27th.

Last week was productive as we learned more about finding our "cadence" on the bikes and anticipating inclines and declines so that we can shift gears accordingly. Bike riding is much more scientific than I first thought it was when I learned to ride a bike without training wheels or rented one of those cheapo bikes at the beach to ride around on a warm summer day.

Away from the bike riding front, last week was also productive in another way. On Thursday I met with my endocrinologist and she was very helpful in talking through the management of my diabetes during our training and the long ride on June 27th. She also was nice enough to offer to talk with another patient of hers who is a more experienced rider. I am hoping to get connected with him so that I can have a fellow diabetic to strategize with as I learn more about managing blood sugars through strenuous exercise.

On Friday, Jessica and I quickly learned that riding bikes in sub-32 degree weather is a big mistake! After work we decided to try our hand at a quick 5 mile ride but less than a mile into the ride learned that ears and finger tips don't do well in extreme cold temps on bikes. We ended up getting a little over 4 miles in but wow, it took hours to thaw out.

One final note: we would like to send a special thanks to those individuals who have already contributed to our ride team. Although official solicitations will not be sent until next week, several folks have generously contributed and for that we are extremely thankful. As I go low after some rides or have days where my blood sugar is unexplainably high I remind myself that there is hope for a cure thanks to those who continually contribute to the funding of promising diabetes research.

This week we move to 7 mile rides for at least 3 days. We'll then have our first 10 mile ride next Sunday as we mark the 1st day of March.

Andrew