Today was the first official training ride for the Anchor House Ride for Runaways, the "Tour de Manure". Below is the text of an email I sent out to people about my experience today:
Hey, all -
Time for another of my occasional emails about my training for the Anchor House Ride for Runaways, the 500-mile charity ride I'll be doing in July for Anchor House, the home for children in Trenton.
http://www.anchorhouseride.org/
Today was the first official training ride, the “Tour de Manure”, so-named because it brings riders past a number of farms which employ this form of fertilizer, and I can attest that the farm at mile 27.6 had put out a supply just long enough ago that the maximum fragrance was wafting on the zephyrs. Today's ride was 32.5 miles, on a remarkably windy day, through some hilly territory. My maximum speed was 32.6mph, but my average was only 15.1; people who know about riding will know that this range suggests some tough uphills, on into-the-winds, or uphill-and-into-the-winds.
The ride almost didn't happen: it was originally scheduled for yesterday, Saturday, April 16, and locals will know that starting in the afternoon and going into the evening we had rain, and then rain, and then (for a change) a thunderstorm. We got an email moving the date to today, Sunday, and today turned out much nicer, but cold and windy. The rain had its effects, though; the starting point for the ride is in Pennington, on the other side of the Raritan River and the Delaware & Raritan Canal. There's a very nice drive down Canal Road through Griggstown, where there's a one-car-width bridge over the canal. Well, it's a bridge over the canal in most circumstances; when I got there today, the bridge, and much of the historic section of Griggstown, was under about three feet of water, so I had to turn the car around and find a new route... and the route I chose was ALSO flooded!
So after some backtracking, I managed to get across the canal at Rocky Hill (and on the way back, the water appeared to be about six feet or so higher than normal) and went to the starting point for the ride today. Before I got there, though, I stopped at a Dunkin Donuts for some fuel. I got two doughnuts for this ride; I know from checking my speed and weight, and the calorie tables on the Dunkin Donuts website, that my MPD (miles per doughnut, of course) is a little more than one doughnut per hour, so two for this ride seemed about right. When I left the house, I wasn't sure I was going to need all the layers I had on... but when I got to the wind-blasted hilltop parking lot, I put on another; it was COLD up there! After a short speech by the ride committee about safety, especially on the wet roads, we left.
First of all, it's a beautiful ride. We get to ride around that section of Mercer and Hunterdon Counties, and see estates, horse farms, sheep farms, dairy farms... it's hard to believe that all this exists less than 40 miles from the intersection of Broad & Market Streets in Newark. It was a hilly and windy ride, too (I think I mentioned that). This is not a race; the reasons for this ride include helping people who have not started training yet to get started (while the ride is expected for us newbies, the veterans are encouraged to come along, as well), to allow the ride team to see if there are any of us who may need special assistance before the ride, and to allow people to begin to set their own paces. Riders do not all ride together, although any riders do ride in groups, and this ride helps people to meet others who ride in their speed range. I found a few whom I might be able to ride with.
I'm not a particularly fast rider (on the flats, I can manage 17-17.5mph at this point in the season), but I like hills. My bike is geared for hills and distance, rather than speed, and I can go up hills well, so today was fun for me. Even though my time (over two hours) wasn't great, I'm doing well in my training – I ought to be; today put me over 600 miles since the first of the year (and yes, I've been riding on some COLD days – check out some of my blog posts for notes on them; the blog link is in my signature to this email).
Now it's back to regular riding, with the Princeton Freewheelers (the club I ride with regularly) and the folks who are going on the Anchor House ride with whom I hope to train. Next month are two long rides (over 60 miles) which are supposed to be similar to a day on the ride itself. I've looked at the route, and it includes Federal Twist Road, a hill infamous among central Jersey riders. I haven't been up it yet, but I'm looking forward to it, with the sort of grim anticipation that one might look forward to a horror movie. I'll let youse know how that goes.
Those of you who have made a donation should have received your thank-you letters from Anchor House by now (I got mine, and I know mine was late going out). If you haven't, let me know and I'll make sure you get something (although online donors have the ability to print an acknowledgment immediately). If you've donated, thanks again from me and the kids at Anchor House. If you haven't, and you'd like to, below is a link to my own donation page:
http://www.anchorhouseride.org/Donate.aspx?participantId=779
... or you can contact me directly about a donation.
Thanks to all of you for your support.
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