"Claire Petersky" wrote in message
...

"Fred" wrote in message
...

"Claire Petersky" wrote in message
...

Distance Saturday - 107 miles

Distance Sunday - 97 miles

Wow!

What kind of training did Rose do for this ride? How long has she been
riding?


Rose has always had neurological issues with coordination and balance, and
had occupational/physical therapy as a toddler and preschooler to get her
at
least within a standard deviation of her age group. She would scream like
you were cutting off her arm with a chain saw when put on a bicycle at age
5. She took very well, though, to the trail-a-bike. She can ride a single
today, but she's always happier on the tandem, where all she has to do is
pedal, and not have to worry about falling over.

Before this year, she her max was 20 - 25 mile loops with me around the
area, with maybe a 30 miler being the big ride of the summer. Last fall,
we
were doing one of those 25 mile loops, and I casually said something like,
"if you did this four times in one day, that would be your first day of
STP". December 6 -- I posted it to the group -- she said that she wanted
to
train for STP 2005.

We started with a flat 15 mile Sunday training ride in January. We did a
training ride every weekend of increasing mileage or difficulty, such
that,
by mid-June, we did a very hilly 70 mile ride. Then we slacked off to
rides
about that same distance, but less strenuous. Mid-week, we started off by
at
first, just riding to her bat mitzvah class (15 flat miles, skipping the
horrible hill at end). We then added the horrible hill at the end, and
then
did it as a 30 mile loop. My husband often did the bat mitvah ride with
her
instead. So, she was getting about 100 miles a week towards the end.
Unfortunately, we never did get to doing a back-to-back difficult ride
like
is demanded on STP.

Me, on top of these rides with Rose, I was riding to and from work,
putting
on an additional 75 - 125 (also increasing as the year progressed) miles,
and then occasional rides with my husband.

--
Warm Regards,


Claire Petersky
Personal page: http://www.geocities.com/cpetersky/
See the books I've set free at:
http://bookcrossing.com/referral/Cpetersky



Inspirational. I'm hoping I can do rides like that with my children when
they get older. We do ok now, at four and two. The four year old rides
on the tandem with a child stoker kit and we have a rack with a child seat
for the two year old. People seemed pretty charmed when the three of us
ride by on one bike. We usually only go 5-7 miles at a time, although the
other day we did 14 miles non-stop. I have to be prepared for the demand
to "get off right now" at any time, so every ride is a wait and see what we
get.