Yesterday was the first warm, sunny day in Annapolis, Md., in many weeks, and that meant it was time to start training for the 2007 Face of America Ride. The two-day, 110-mile ride is less than a week away, so it was time to get some miles in.
I had been riding my trainer indoors all winter, along with running and doing my regular exercise regimen of stretching and chin-ups, etc., but there is no substitute for time on the road, and that was far too apparent after 34 miles on flat terrain felt like a century in the Rockies.
But no worries, because just being a part of this ride is more important than how I get it done.
If you missed my post last week to bikingbis.com, the Face of Amerca ride, from Gettysburg, Pa., to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, is being sponsored by World T.E.A.M. Sports — T.E.A.M. stands for The Exceptional Athlete Matters — whose mission is to use “the powerful platform of sports to bring together the disabled and able-bodied communities.”
Able-bodied riders will be cycling through the rolling (“rolling” is a polite way to say “hilly”) Pennsylvania countryside with disabled athletes, many of whom are soldiers who lost limbs in Iraq or Afghanistan and who will be riding hand-crank bikes and two-wheeled bikes with the aid of prostheses.
World T.E.A.M. Sports is a great nonprofit organization that I first discovered in 2002 when I did a ride from Ground Zero to the Pentagon a year after the 9/11 attacks.
For this year's Face of America ride, I will be filing text and pictures to bikingbis.com, and photo galleries to my own website, www.bpfphotography.net, starting next Friday, after registration and the kickoff dinner.
As for my training log, it will be sparse. 34 miles yesterday on the B&A Trail, with luck 40 today and 40 tomorrow, and that may have to suffice. But as a veteran cross-country rider (with none other than Biking Bis) and with a number of cross-state rides and centuries under my belt, I will get by with muscle memory!
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