Training for this year's STP (Seattle to Portland bike ride)

This will be our fifth Seattle to Portland bike ride together, and all also with Jules.  Although not in any way the most difficult of bike rides available, for us it is a challenge.  Two days to ride 210 miles puts a lot of strain on our old bodies.  Just being in the saddle for that many hours can be quite uncomfortable if one isn't ready for it.

And our idea is not just to crawl into Portland on our last breaths, but to be able to enjoy the experience.

We are providing our training ideas here in case you are planning on doing the STP and might be interested in how different people get ready for it.  There are many ways of doing this---do what fits you and your life.  This fits us and our lives. 

Our goal each year is to ride about 1300 miles in the four months prior to the ride.   We have found that this amount of riding gets us prepared.  We can't ride over the winter because we are in the desert, so each year have to in some ways start over, although we find we get up to speed pretty quickly.

This year has been a bit of a challenge because the weather in March, when we returned home to Whidbey Island, was quite wet.  So we set up our trainers on the back porch and "rode" on them for a couple of weeks.  It's a little boring, but still gave us a good start.

So our first ride wasn't until March 18.  A week later we took 10 days off to go to Georgia to visit Emily, Sean, Soren and Sebastian, which means that we essentially started riding around the beginning of April. As of yesterday have completed our 50th ride of the season, at a bit over 1000 miles.

Over the few years we have been cycling we have settled upon how to get into shape and have fun in a way that fits our mid- (Vicky) to late- (me) sixty-year-old bodies that have a bit more than the usual amount of arthritis in them.

Our approach first of all is that what we do has to be fun.  We aren't training for a race, but for health and to be able to see the world at 12-14 miles per hour.  We aren't trying to beat our previous times to Portland or anything like that.  We want to arrive there feeling a sense of accomplishment and feeling good.   So, we don't take killer training rides.

The second piece of our cycling is to find variety in where we ride.  We do this in several ways.  We have many different routes close to our home:  a 12, 13, 19, 22, 30, and 50 (which we no longer do) and a 100 (which we no longer do).  These routes constitute 75% of our riding.   We also participate in some organized bike rides in Seattle, Wenatchee, Kent, La Conner, Orting, and Richland.   We do several miles on the flat Burke-Gilman trail in Seattle.  Finally, last year we started taking "bike trips" on the ferry to the San Juan Islands, staying in inexpensive motels and riding during the day.

The third part of our philosophy of training is to do more frequent, but shorter, rides.  We used to think that if one wanted to get ready for two 100-mile days then we should be doing 100 mile rides.  What we found, though, was that doing that was in some ways counterproductive because we were spending too much time recovering from those long rides.  This season, for example, like last season, we will only do one 100 mile ride in preparation, with all other rides being significantly shorter.

Our first organized ride:  The Tulip Pedal in LaConnor:

 

Next was the Daffodil Classic in Orting, WA.

Our next organized ride was in the Kent, WA area:  The Bike N Brews.  Here we are with Jules and our friend John.  

Our next ride is a favorite:  The Inland Empire in Richland, WA.  The highlight of this ride is Weber Canyon and Horse Heaven Hills at the top of the canyon:

Jules and our friend Dale did this ride too.

Our final organized ride was the Apple Century in Wenatchee, WA.

 
 with Jules:



 
 We have taken one trip to the San Juan Islands this season (and will take another in two weeks).  We went to Lopez Island, taking the ferry with our bikes.  That's a great way to do it because then you don't have to wait in ferry lines because of your car:


   
 

The weather wasn't great, but it wasn't raining.   The islands are used to cyclists, so it feels safe.  Plus, in the off season, especially on weekdays, there isn't much traffic.


 We always stop at Panera or Subway when we do long rides on the Burke-Gilman:

But, of course, most of our riding is on our beautiful, and hilly, Whidbey Island.  Where else can you ride and see two mountain ranges, Mt. Ranier, and two straits?  Along with beautiful tide areas and small farms?