Riding for Roses

The deal, as I have mentioned before, is that I am to help Spencer raise $25,000 for the Lance Armstrong Foundation so he can stomp my prior fundraising record soundly, be in the private ride, meet Lance, and get his autograph. You can help now by donating to support cancer survivors and Spencer’s personal Ride for the Roses. Then I am supposed to ride the 40 mile ride with Spencer. They’ve changed the route slightly this year. The distance is a tiny bit longer. The hill climbing is about the same (we are after all climbing up to the same small plateau, just by a different route).

There are two small problems.

First, to merge the 25 and 40 mile rides, they put the last rest stop on the 40 mile ride further into the ride. The distance between the second and third rest stops is now 17 miles which is significantly longer than we had been planning for. Spencer may have problems sitting on the bicycle that long.

Second, I’ve had painful gallstones and need my gall bladder out in early September. After the surgery until my followup checkup I’m not supposed to lift anything over 15 pounds. This creates challenges as Jacob weighs significantly more than that and I’m the only one in the house who can lift him. We’ll find ways to deal with that. The bigger challenge is that for four week post surgery, I am supposed to avoid strenuous activity, specifically including serious bicycle riding. That means I will go a month without any training at all. I’d recently started building a good base on a 12 week plan when the gall bladder attacks started. I am at a loss on how I am going to get back into shape in three weeks after four weeks of no significant exercise.

This could be a little tougher than I thought it would be.