"If you miss the train I'm on, you will know that I am gone..."

Unlike the melancholy wanderer in the Hedy West song, my cycling computer was at my right hand as I logged in yesterday's ride (to the doctor's office in one direction, then the supermarket in the opposite direction), and as I scrolled past the odometer, it read 512.4 (miles) -- which was approximately the distance I'd ridden since January first. Now, I'm nowhere fast enough to be part of someone's "lead-out train" at the end of a bicycle race -- much less fast enough to consider having others lead me out. Heck, I'm not even fast enough to consider racing the average ten-year-old (I think). But plugging away at it, bit by bit -- errand by errand -- group ride by group ride (OK, there've only been three of those so far, and during none have I been able to keep with the group) -- I've ridden over five hundred miles, this year alone.

"L-rd I'm one, L-rd I'm two..."

Compared to serious cyclists, 500 miles in four months is nothing -- about 125 miles per month, 30 miles per week (seven miles per day, if you wanted to break it down that far). Casual hobbyists tend to average 50-100 miles a week; pros often ride 100 miles or longer in a single day. Fifty miles a week is something I consider a reasonable goal for long-term fitness -- if I count all my errands-running and office-work as well as the weekly group ride and what passes for individual training rides. And as I gear up for the Tour de Cure in June, I expect to be riding longer and more challenging rides. My aim for May is a minimum of 200 miles. After my 8.7-mile errands ride today, I've made that distance in April.

Gold's Gym, in conjunction with the American Diabetes Association's Tour de Cure, makes available a twelve-week training program -- which I finally looked at two or three weeks ago. Based on my comfortable-range and the distance I'll be riding in June, I'm right in their schedule. On the other hand, the plan through Polar Personal Trainer is a six-week plan that is more detailed, more ambitious time-wise, and probably more appropriate to what my final ride will be like. On the third hand, it expects me to be able to handle hills at a heart rate barely above that of sitting still, while the reality is that I red-zone very quickly when climbing. I'm not sure whether it's geared to people who are much more fit than I am, or if that program will condition me to the point where I will be able to climb without hitting heart rates that have some cardiology techs pushing the "stop" button on the treadmill stress test.

"Not a shirt on my back, not a penny to my name..."

I'm actually okay on jerseys (as long as I do the laundry every third day), but I'm still way behind in the most important part of the Tour: fundraising. How many times can I hit up the same people and say, "Please sponsor me!" before they become so annoyed that they're ready to toss me out the door before I've even stepped inside? (There's that old song, "The Thing", but that's fodder for another post.) I need to find a new group of people to hit up for donations so I can hitch onto that Tour de Cure train ride...

"You can hear the whistle blow, a hundred miles..."

And... back to that stress test... My latest was ten days ago, and it was the first one I've had done without contrast -- so instead of a four-hour ordeal with a needle stuck painfully in my arm, preceded by several hours' fasting, it was twenty minutes and twelve electrical leads. The real stress of this test, though, was that the software instructed the tech to get my heart rate up to 189 beats per minute. I'm pretty sure this was the same software that was used for my last stress test, at which time the tech had set a goal of 149, which was 85% of theoretical maximum, based on the standard algorithm of HR(max) = 220 - age in years. The machine was telling the tech to set me up for 86% of the maximum heart rate of an infant! Now, while I'm among the first to admit my self-image (body and personality) is considerably younger than my real age, thinking of me an infant is really taking things a bit too far.

"Riding to 'save' my life" -- however multiply-nuanced the phrase might be -- isn't. Just ask anyone on two wheels.