Day 14 - Triple Bypass

It's official.  I'm going to be riding in the Triple Bypass bike ride on July 13.  The Triple Bypass is a big annual organized bike ride in Colorado, traveling from Evergreen to Avon, climbing three big mountain passes along the way.  Registration opened a couple weeks ago, but the ride is limited to a certain number of participants, and the final selections were made today.

The Triple Bypass actually consists of three different rides.  The Saturday ride travels from Evergreen to Avon, and the Sunday ride travels from Avon back to Evergreen.  And there is the Double Triple Bypass, which combines both the Saturday and Sunday rides.

Each day includes a 120-mile ride, with over 10,000 feet of elevation gain.  This includes climbs of Squaw/Juniper Pass, Loveland Pass and Vail Pass, and some truly beautiful Colorado high country.
I haven't mentioned this earlier, since the registrations weren't finalized, but this ride was one of the main reasons I started this blog.  The Triple Bypass is my main cycling goal this year, and the impetus behind me trying to get in shape.  Last year, I spent the summer training for the Good Sam Bike Jam, and this year I will be training for the Triple Bypass.  My goal weight of 165 is the number I came up with, a weight I felt at which I could complete this ride.  It is a little more than my ideal weight, but seems pretty realistic to me.  From now on, all my training described on this blog is my effort to build up my strength and endurance for this ride.  And a big part of building up the strength and endurance is to lose a lot of weight.

So, please continue to follow me here to hopefully see me transform from a fat blob into a lean, mean, biking machine.  I plan to continue with healthy eating, general fitness, and once it warms up, lots and lots of training rides.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit/protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Protein bar while driving to a meeting
• Dinner:  Couple pieces of pizza.  Daughter's gymnastics night is usually pizza night.

Exercise:

• My usual morning routine.
• After the kids went to bed, I did 20 intense minutes on the elliptical, 10 minutes of cardio pretty similar to my morning routine, and another 20 minutes on the elliptical.  I've adjusted my stance a little to keep the pressure of my achilles; running more flat-footed, which seems to help.  And I finished watching the movie Bernie.  Loved it.  
• The weather is supposed to warm up in a couple days, so I should be able to get back on the bike soon.

Today's weigh-in:  216.4