POSTS

The hills, they mock me

Ok, so this morning I was sitting around 96k and change on total vertical feet climbed since I got my Forerunner 301 back in May (26th is my first recorded ride). So, what's there to do but go get that extra 4k feet in climbing. I live in Fountain Hills, so it should be easy enough, right? Well, I went and did every climb I could find, including no fewer than 3 climbs with a gradient over 16% (including one that's flagged by the city as 18%). An hour and a half and 26 miles later, I was 3.3k closer to the 100k mark.

Run the totals again to see where I'm at. I've got 101.1k feet descending, and what's that, vertical feet are being condescending to me: 99,812 feet. I started to put my shoes back on and go climb El Lago one more time to make the last mark, but my legs protested. So tomorrow, I've got to go climb El Lago, or Pallisades, one more time so I can have climbed 100k in less than 6 months of really spotty riding.

So next year? Well, it's going to be at least a half million foot year for me. Taking the last two month's worth of riding and extrapolating it out to a full year, I would have climbed 221k feet (that's 18 rides in roughly 60 days - I know I can do better than that). So, there's the goal. 500k is doable - actually, it should be the standard mark for me. So far this year, my rides have averaged roughly 2k. If I ride five days a week at that, I'll be over 500k by the end of the year.

Now, if I can outdo Mark Weir of WTB - he managed over a million this past year (with 365 days of riding) - that'll be awesome.