Greg Olmstead
A few years ago I took up cycling to get back in shape. What started out as 5-10 mile rides became 50-75 mile rides. These days, I train for double centuries and brevets. Because I'm 6'9" and 225, I don't expect to finish ahead of riders who are younger stronger, and lighter, but I'm always trying to find ways to shave time of my rides.
When I'm not riding, I build software to help people who work with kids with autism. You can find my software at
www.mobilethinking.com. You can email
me if you want.
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96 days to PBP
The Paris ride is approaching, and I resolved myself to do all my training for it on PowerCranks. I hadn't been riding much for about 6 weeks, except for my actual brevets. And so when I resumed my training a couple weeks ago, even for a short 40 mile jaunt, I could really feel the pain in my hip flexors and hamstrings. But my theory on training is that it's best to go until some muscle fails, recover a day or two, and then go even father the next time. Repeat as necessary.
Bearing that in mind, I tried a 108km ride with 5500 ft of climbing. I was about 15km from the finish and I could barely get my pedal over the top of the stroke. I alternated legs, 3-5 rotations at a time, and was able to just finish within the time limit. Last week, I went on a 206km ride with 9000ft of climbing. I made it with a little time to spare, but was definitely hurting. I'm going to climb Mt Palomar on Friday, which is about 12 miles of uphill and 4200 ft of climbing. Fun!
These rides are supposed to be building me up for a 300km ride with 13000 ft of climbing at the beginning of June and a 400km ride at the end of June. And throughout all of this, I'll be doing several 250km rides with about 13000ft of climbing throughout the summer.
My goal is to be able to do three consecutive days of riding with 200-250km and 8000-12000 ft of climbing a day, by the beginning of August. All on PowerCranks. If I can do that, then I'll be ready for 1200km and 30000 ft of climbing in late August in France.
