My Summary - Riding Days 1 to 7

Aloha! Today is a rest day in Albuquerque, N.M. Here’s a quick summary of the past seven days.

The first three days were spent in the deserts of CA and AZ with temperatures in the 90s and clear blue skies. The next two days included a lot of climbing in canyons/mountains in AZ through two SNOW STORMS! REALLY! It’s been a long time since I’ve been so cold. The last two days were primarily downhill past some Indian reservations, with cold temperatures but clear skies. We’ve had many windy days, but thankfully very little headwinds.

It is amazing how quickly my body is adapting to the ride. After each of the first few days my legs were very sore; but now the soreness has gone away. I’m certainly tired at the end of each day, but I don’t hurt.

We arise each day around 5:30 a.m., eat breakfast, and get on the road. We stop for snacks once or twice a day, in addition to lunch. We finish around 4 or 5 p.m., eat, and then off to bed by 7:30 p.m. or so. Seems like boot camp!

There are 15 riders, and 4 support staff. We all get along very well.

841 miles down, 2071 miles to go!

MAHALO FOR YOUR DONATIONS TO THE SPASTIC PARAPLEGIA FOUNDATION!

Daily Ride Summary and Photos

Here's a link to great website updated daily by our tour leader:   http://www.americabybicycle.com/BAMA/BAMA/Welcome.html. Click FAST SOUTH and FS PHOTO ALBUMS.

And I'm off!!!

Here are some pictures from this morning taken at Newport Beach, CA - the ceremonial bike dip into the Pacific Ocean.  We left later than scheduled and will ride 115 miles today to Palm Springs.  Tomorrow is 130 miles to Blythe, CA and basically we ride from 103-135 miles/per day straight until we get to Albuquerque, NM, our first rest stop.  Then we ride for eight days to Ft. Smith, AR, our second rest stop. Finally, we ride for ten days into Savannah, GA, our final destination.  (Post written by daughter Lisa - thanks!)

Please continue to send in your donations.  I really appreciate your support.  And a special thanks to Amy for waking up early and taking these pictures  :-)

SPF Newsletter Article

Here's the link (scroll down to page 5):  http://www.sp-foundation.org/assets/pdf/Synapse/Synapse_Spring_2010.pdf 

BYU Hawaii Newspaper Article

Here's the link:   http://kealakai.byuh.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2729&Itemid=60

March's Training Stats

I rode 1285 miles in March (290 miles a week), including three centuries (two back-to-back).  The miles per week are a bit less than February's because I increased the number of low mileage, high intensity interval workouts, in order to build speed.