It’s been a great two weeks for being able to check off a couple of objectives – both related to health and fitness!
Last Saturday, May 20, 2023, I completed a solo century ride (100 miles) on my bicycle! Then, today (5/28/23) my workout buddy Giacomo Campinoti and I each crushed 3 sets of 10 pullups at the gym!
Let me discuss the pullups first. Back in February, I had made a post entitled “Buddy-up to Improve Your “Stick-to-it-ness”!” (you can click on the title to go to the post in the event you missed it). in which I described how Giacomo and I had agreed to work together on our strength training starting at the beginning of the year. In February, we set a goal of being able to complete 3 sets of 10 pullups by the end of May. Pull-ups are a very good overall indicator of upper body / core strength and directly apply to shooting clays as more strength in those areas help to hoist the shotgun up and down several hundred times during a competitive shoot! Perhaps you have installed a pull up bar in a doorway of your home – if so, you realize how daunting it can be to stare up at the at bar while willing your arms, shoulders back and core to help you raise your chin up over it! It is not an easy exercise. Honestly, neither of us could manage a single set of more pullups than could be counted on one hand when we first started.
Flash forward to today… my planet fitness app shows that I have checked in 77 times over the course of the last 5 months. An average of over 15 visits / month. Slowly but surely, we built up the necessary muscles to allow us to do 3 complete sets of 10 pullups today. The beauty of working at a gym is that various machines and equipment are available to accomplish goals like this. So, in addition to working on pullups on a pullup bar, we also performed “lat pull downs” as well as other targeted exercises. One really neat machine that Planet Fitness has is an assisted pullup machine. This allows you to do the exact pullup motion, but with some of your body weight offset by the machine
We started out by offsetting 50-60 lbs of our body weight, and then gradually decreased it over time until we got to the point where we did not need the assistance and could just use a bar. It has been extremely motivating to have a work out buddy with shared goals. We both seem to work harder when we are at the gym together!
Now to the biking! You may recall my recap of my 2022 objectives in which I reported that I had achieved my stretch goal of riding 5000 miles on my bike (if you want to read that post, you can find it HERE). The longest ride that I had achieved in 2022 was 82 miles long. After that ride, I had it in my mind that I wanted to complete a ride of 100 miles (a century ride). I ride for fitness, and as such, I ride a bike categorized as a fitness bike. It does not have drop bars and pedals that click into cleats on biking shoes like faster road bikes– just a plain flat bar with flat pedals.
On the other hand, it does have a carbon fiber frame and fork bringing the weight of the bike in at about 20 lbs. I had been planning the century ride for quite some time making a list of all of the things that I needed to do to make it successful. From my previous posts, you know how I like using lists – a great mental skills tool! Some of the things included on my list were increasing my biking playlist of songs on my phone to cover the entire 7 hour planned duration with no repeats on the music, and reconfiguring my computer mount so I could incorporate an external battery for my Wahoo trip computer to make sure I would have enough juice to capture all of the data for the extended ride and transfer it to STRAVA – my riding App (if a ride is not on STRAVA, it didn’t happen).
I really wanted to accomplish the ride during the spring time while the weather was still cool. But… as those of you in NC know, we have not had many dry weekends this spring! Last weekend was a different story – the forecast was for cool, dry conditions for Saturday! The average conditions during my ride were partly cloudy with an average temperature of 58 degrees F with light winds. PERFECT! It was actually pretty cool when I pushed off at 6:24 am so I layered up with a sweatshirt which I jettisoned at the one and only break I took at the 56-mile mark (the break got me out of the saddle for no more than 3 minutes). My ride route took me over the white oak greenway back and forth between Davis Drive and the American Tobacco Trail (9 circuits). I was perfectly content riding the greenway rather than getting out on roads.
I had targeted averaging 15 MPH for the first 50 miles and 14MPH for the 2nd. As it turned out, I averaged 15.3 for the first 75 miles. This dropped to 15.0 at the 85-mile mark, and 14.4 at the conclusion of the ride (those last few miles were really challenging!).
Some of those that I have already discussed the ride with wondered how I fueled for such a ride as I ended up burning more than 5000 calories. I had my normal breakfast of Cheerios with fresh fruit (blueberries and raspberries) and beet juice. At the 56 mile-break (my only comfort stop), I had a banana and a protein shake. That and four bottles of water (two with electrolytes added) were it! In retrospect, I probably should have hydrated a little more, especially early in the ride as I started experiencing some leg cramps during the final portion of the ride.
Overall, it was a very pleasant ride. At the 56-mile mark, I told me wife I might extend the ride to 114 miles (the length of the ride at the Hawaii ironman competition). By the time I got to 75 miles, I decided that 100 miles would be enough for the day! Maybe next time! I was no worse for the wear that evening during which we had another couple over for dinner. I did take Sunday off from working out, but on Monday, I was back at the gym and also rode 25 miles on the bike just to loosen up!
Speaking of next time, I hope you have enjoyed this post about these two accomplishments. If so, I will elaborate on the next objectives in future posts!
Thanks! Mike