Today is Monday, June 9, and there is just six days to the start of the Ohio Odyssey. Many people have asked me whether I have trained for this endeavor and the answer is ... sort of. I'm not sure there really is any proper way to train for 20 days on a bicycle. After all, what can you do to mimic the feeling of sitting on a bicycle seat for 100 hours over 20 days?
As a 51-year-old person with a full-time job, there is precious little time to train for an athletic event such as this. In January, I joined the Akron YMCA and attended step aerobics class around twice a week. Well, that was my intention anyway.
This winter was not a good one for riding. My bike riding log shows about 200 miles of riding before the Mother's Day weekend ride called TOSRV. That's the Tour of the Scioto River Valley - 105 miles from Columbus to Portsmouth, Ohio, on Saturday and then the return trip on Sunday. I managed to complete that. Since then I've totaled about another 100 miles of practice rides, for a grand total of 500 miles so far this season. The Odyssey will be at least double that in the space of 20 days.
Anyway, I enter into this adventure with some fears of fatigue. After riding for 50-70 miles each day, I know I will want to recover ... only to have to wake up the next morning and ride all over again. I'll try not to think about it.
9:45:55 PM 
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