2023 Cross Country Plans
As this blog post's title indicates, I am planning to ride across the country again in 2023. This trip, called Portland to Portland by Trek Travel, takes a northern route from Astoria Oregon to Portland Maine. Compared with the trip I took in 2019 from Santa Barbara CA to Myrtle Beach SC, this trip is about 350 miles longer (~3785 miles versus ~3435 miles) and will take 5 days longer (42 riding days versus 37). Unlike the 2019 trip where I did not know anyone prior to arriving in Santa Barbara, on this trip I will know 3 other riders: my close friends and frequent riding companions Jesse and Ruth as well as a rider from my 2019 cross country trip, Paula.
I know some people are curious about how my healing has gone since my bike crash in July. The bones healed quickly, so I was able to get back to very easy riding on my trainer by mid-August, just 6 weeks after the crash. However, my ankle is still far from 100%. My left ankle remains somewhat swollen and has a more limited range of motion compared to my right. The ankle is very tight when I wake up and is often fatigued in the evening. I also have a bit of nerve damage which makes 3 of my toes tingle, with one of them feeling too large and pointed the wrong direction. This is not really a problem, just mildly annoying. Healing continues but is slow. Other people who have had similar injuries have said to me that it took them a year or more before these types of symptoms largely went away with some symptoms remaining intermittently for far longer.
Because of both my injury and some commitments in my personal life, I was only able to start consistent riding and active training following Thanksgiving. Not surprisingly, I am in worse condition now than I was in the beginning of 2019. This trip starts in mid-August rather than mid-September, so I have one less month to build up my fitness. I am also 4 years older with a lower level of long term base fitness. In the 3 years before my 2019 trip, I rode 19,600 miles versus just 11,800 in the past 3 years. Thus, in one sense, getting into shape will be a larger challenge than in 2019. The one big positive is that I have done this before. As such, I know what I need to do for training. I also know that I do not need to be in as good shape as I was in 2019 in order to complete the ride. Back in 2019, I was one of the stronger riders overall and probably the strongest rider on the flats. This year, I am more likely to be in the middle of the pack which will be just fine.
Training for a trip like this is a very big project and can feel daunting. I found that breaking it up into blocks really helped. In 2019, I broke training up into 4 large blocks. The first was the end of 2018 to early January culminating in a week bicycling trip to Chile. The second was until early May culminating in a week trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains. The third section went to the end of June and finished with a one day 250 mile (400K) ride from Woburn MA to Portland ME and back. That left one final stretch before the trip in mid-September.
This year, I will be doing the same thing although I have not yet figured out all of the trips or events I will be targeting. However, I have booked a first trip which will be a week training camp in Mallorca in the end of February. There is lots of climbing in Mallorca, so that gives me motivation to both train and to lose some weight. I also have a tentative trip to the Finger Lakes area in NY scheduled for early May with Jesse, Ruth and my friend Doug (all of whom were on the trip this past July).
I am looking forward to 2023 and hoping it will be a terrific biking year. For those who are curious, below is a visual summary of some of my biking stats from 2022.
Wishing everyone a fabulous 2023!