Bicycle Training and German Football (soccer)
Two days ago I went out to the small town I moved from, because the paved farm roads of this agricultural area are excellent for bicycling, and the weather was perfect in the morning. It got unseasonably hot (86 degrees F) in the afternoon, but I was finished by that time.
The ride was as close to perfect as it ever gets. There were some headwinds on the way outbound, but that only meant they would be tailwinds on the latter part of the ride. There was relatively little car traffic even on the short sections of highway that I rode; this was especially true given that it was Saturday. The route was about 36 miles (57 km), and involved about 1,200 vertical feet (366 m) of climbing. I stopped 3 times; once for a quick stretch/bathroom break about 6 miles in, again for a stretch/water break about 19 miles in, and finally before the big hill about 27 miles in.
The route took me just under 3 hours to complete (not including rest stops); this means my “moving average” was over 12 mph (over 19 km/h). Not bad at all, considering two things: (1) this was my first ride of more than 15 miles in over 6 months and (2) there were lots of hills on this route including a big one towards the finish, and those tend to push the average way down since one is spending a long time climbing slowly.
Overall I feel really good about it. Ideally I would ride one of these every week, gradually increasing the distance to about 75 miles (120 km) with about 3,500 feet (1,067 m) of vertical climb. This way I would be ready for the Tour De Fox in late August benefiting the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s disease research. If the Tour De Fox ends up getting canceled due to COVID-19, I will do a “virtual ride” meaning the same or more mileage and vertical on my own (recorded by Ride With GPS).
Another update: the German football (soccer) league Bundesliga is back up and running this coming weekend. Normally I would not be excited about this at all. I am very excited about it now. Widely considered the third most elite football league worldwide (after the English Premier League and the Spanish Liga), Bundesliga will be playing games in empty stadiums–but they will be broadcast live on Fox Sports.
I’m hoping to learn more about the game of soccer, and about my new favorite team, Borussia Dortmund, in the coming weeks. Premier League has the green light from the UK government to start up as soon as June, and maybe I’ll have picked a favorite in that league by then. And, of course, these games are being played in Europe which means afternoon games are early morning games here, and any evening games are early afternoon games here. Live football!
Bike Newbie 