SpencerWon

We are busy preparing for a cancer advocacy event called Spokes of Hope, that will be nationwide. Austin event will be in September. More details to come here as they become available.

This morning Spencer and I went to Pedal Hard for some training on the CompuTrainer and a live news feed on News 8 Austin. We were on three times live for between 6 and 7:30 AM, when our TV crew got pulled to cover the severe weather. The management and staff at Mellow Johnny’s were incredibly helpful - letting us in to their facilities in the wee hours of Friday to keep us out of the rain. Kevin Livingston at Pedal Hard set us up to do indoor training while doing the live spots for News 8 Austin. He gave Spencer some incredibly helpful advice on form and suggested a shorter crank arm.

We are doing two fundraising rides over the next few months. The Hill Country Ride for AIDS benefits 11 Central Texas organizations that help prevent AIDS or support people with HIV/AIDS. The LIVESTRONG Challenge raises money to support the Lance Armstrong Foundation in the fight against cancer.

If you are interested in donating:

• Donate Spencer’s HCRA
• Donate to Spencer’s LIVESTRONG Challenge ride

The taped segment of us working with Heidi Zhou on reminding her how to ride a bicycle up Mount Bonnell is called Father-son Duo Cycles Past Cancer.

Thanks! We’ll have more here soon.

We finished the ride in 3:56:35 for an average speed of 10.1 MPH. At least 18:03 of that was stops, giving an average rolling speed of at least 11.0 MPH. Spencer was awesome.

We had the classic problem at the start of an organized ride of riding too fast, trying to keep up with all of the people around us. I got Spencer to slow down a little closer to pace before we got too tired and we didn’t have any problems. As we hit a rough area of gravel, we found our friend and “Turtles on Wheels” team mate, Jim Beesley, who rode with us to the first rest stop where he took the photo here. I had senior moment in the parking lot and left my toolkit in the car instead of on my bike. Fortunately, Jim had a hex wrench we used to adjust Spencer’s seat height. He seems to have grown an inch since we bought the bike.

Spencer set to a pattern at the rest stops. At each stop, he would take 8 chocolate chip cookies which he would eat on the rode. He still hasn’t worked up to drinking on the bike, so we stopped at the top of a number of the (not very large) hills for him to drink. He stayed nicely hydrated on the whole ride which was a bit of a challenge for him. He tends to forget to drink when it’s not hot out.

At the northern end of the ride, I was chatting with a nice woman out on the 50 mile course (which mostly overlapped ours) and she was complementing us on spending time together riding and doing outdoor activities, and marveling at an eight year old doing a 40 mile ride, when Spencer’s right foot popped out of his pedal. All we saw from back where we were was his leg kick out, the bike stutter and Spencer correct balance with a kick off the ground to keep from falling. After it was over, he pulled over to the side and was briefly terrified before I borrowed another hex wrench and tightened his pedal release a bit. He just hopped on the bike and started riding again. I barely had to encourage him to work through the adrenalin and fear from the near spill. Yay, Spencer! Honestly, if that had happened to me, I suspect I would have gone done and had a heck of a road rash to deal with next week. Glad it didn’t go that way

After we finished the ride, we had a free lunch at Chicken Express and talked to a number of other riders, who were similarly impressed at an 8 year old doing that 40 mile ride as training for his “big” ride.

Just a few days to go to the October 22 fundraising deadline. Please donate to fight cancer and support Spencer’s 45 mile hill country ride to raise money for the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

Round Rock ISD had Friday and today off so Spencer and I planned a little riding. Friday got sidetracked by room cleaning. Who knew that Spencer and Jacob had been hiding so much behind the dressers and under the bed? Today, however, went right as planned - well except for Spencer forgetting his socks the first time we left the house. We started at Brushy Creek Lake Park with
a plan to do two laps up Parmer to FM 2243, down County Road 175 to Sam Bass Road, Great Oaks back to the trail that goes into the park. Google calls it 16.8 miles each lap, plus we did about 1/2 mile of extra riding in the park on the first lap. Elapsed time including stops 3:16:15, for an average speed of 10.4 MPH. We spent at least 10 minutes at stops - Spencer is not yet comfortable drinking while riding, so we stopped 4 times each lap, including almost six minutes reloading Gatorade in the park at the end of the first lap - so our average rolling speed is over 11.

As expected, Spencer did great. His bike handling was excellent, including an excellent job of navigating through some dumped asphalt on the shoulder that including chunks as big a 6 inches by a foot. I am unbelievably pleased with his riding and willingness to attack his goal of riding the 45 miles of the LIVESTRONG Challenge in just 13 days. We did another drop of postcards through the neighborhood and got $9.78 in cash plus $50 online, so the fundraising is going well also. We’ll do one more email blast this week to see what we can get with a little deadline pressure on donations.

Please donate to the Lance Armstrong Foundation and support 8 year old Spencer and his 45 mile bicycle ride to fight cancer.

Spencer has been itching to ride some of the LIVESTRONG Challenge 45 mile course. We wanted to do it to build confidence, ease fears, and find any rough spots. I had high confidence based on our past rides that he has the stamina and will to do the course, so we went ahead and picked what I think are the hardest 25 miles of the 45 mile course.

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Rachel and Jacob were driving SAG for us with plans to meet on Creek Rd after they stopped for lunch and played at a playground in Dripping Springs. The wind was from the SSW so it was helpful during the first part of the ride (Pump Station Rd, Mt. Sharp Rd, Mt. Gainor Rd), a little challenging when we turned west (Creek Rd), but almost irrelevant as we slogged up the hills heading to the south (Pursley Rd) since we were going so slow. On the way up Pump Station and Mt. Sharp, passed a pair on tandem and two solo riders. Spencer was strong and maintaining a good pace (about 12 MPH rolling average). No problems as we continued along Mt. Gainor Rd so I called Rachel and told her to skip the planned stop and meet us on Mt. Gainor Rd near the end of Pursley (about 22 miles into the ride, just to replenish food and liquid and consider how far we could keep going.

Spencer was nervous about all of the cattle guards on Pursley Rd (I lost count, but it’s around 10), but after he did a couple he started loving them and did a great job making a controlled approach without slowing down too much and avoiding torquing while going over the metal. He’ll do fine on ride day, probably better than most of the adults. He attacked the hills on Pursley and, although I heard occasional whines and grunts, he stayed ahead of me until the last few hills. At that point, I decided to rabbit for him and stayed ahead right at the edge of his doable pace.

By the time we got to Rachel, he was jazzed again and we rode 3 more miles along Mt. Sharp so we could go past where rest stop 2 will be on the Challenge and take the first turn after it. He wanted to keep going, but Jacob was bored out of his skull in the SAG vehicle so we called it quits.

After today’s performance, we don’t need to ride the course again, but we agreed to head out Friday or Monday (school closed for teacher work days) and ride the rest of Mt. Sharp Rd and all of Jacob’s Well Rd (which Jacob tells us he built all by himself - he’s quite proud of how smooth it is and how good the low water crossings are).

Please donate to the Lance Armstrong Foundation to support Spencer’s ride.

I promised I would talk about the training plan for the LIVESTRONG Challenge, so here it is. The LAF have kindly made a LIVESTRONG Challenge 40 mile training plan available for riders. Spencer and I are basically following the plan. The two changes. First, I am making our weekend rides longer since we are riding at a slower pace than the plan-maker likely assumed. This will let us get closer to riding the full distance and thus be more prepared. Second, I am mostly ignoring the “ST” marks which are days to build in hill training. Instead, I have been working in plenty of hills in our regular neighborhood rides and we are planning for our week 10 and 11 (and maybe 9?) long ridesto be on the Challenge course.

This week we are on week 7. We two one hour rides around the neighborhood, both with average speed of 11 MPH. We are trying to do the 45 mile in under five hours of ride time, so we’re plenty on target.
Today was a new longest ride ever for Spencer with another trip to the Austin Veloway. We did 7 laps, totaling 21.7 miles in 1:56:36. Best lap was 14:25.4, worst was 17:47.6 (which included a clipless pedal mishap, might need to tighten the pedals a little). Average pace 11.2. Overall slower than our last visit to the Veloway, but still on target for speed and no problem tiring Spencer out even after almost 22 miles.

As a side-effect of signing up for the LIVESTRONG Challenge bicycle ride, we got entries into the 5k on October 25. I decided I would actually go ahead and do the training program they have at the My LIVESTRONG site. I don’t really figure I need Spencer to do this; the bike riding is enough demonstration of his fitness. I’m the one who needs to get in shape. This week that started calling for running. Normally, I only run when I am being chased, but I’m making a special exception. As a result, I’ve gone for four runs (or walk/runs) in the last two weeks.

Let’s tell it like it is: I suck at running. My form is marginal. I’m far too heavy. I’m incredibly slow. Last night, I managed to do 1.5 miles in 16 minutes. I am not at risk of being competitive in a marathon. But you know what? I like it. It’s making me feel, much more concretely than bicycling does, that I am doing something for my health. I can already run longer and faster than I could two weeks ago. My walks are getting easier, too. I might make this a habit.

Anyway, I’m off for a one hour walk. Later today Spencer and I will do a one hour bicycle ride.

This week, the training plan has us building up ride times with two one hour rides during the week and an hour and a half over the weekend. Jacob was home sick Monday and Tuesday, so we didn’t get to ride either day. Today we got in the first hour.

We rode out to the main street through our development, did three laps of that (3.5 miles each) and then headed home. Total ride time 61 minutes for an 11.1 mile course with 3 stops for water.

Spencer was using his clipless pedals for the first time on the solo bike. He had a couple of spills at stops, but not from the pedals. He keeps trying to keep the bike totally vertical when he puts a foot down, so a tiny loss of balance topples him. I’m trying to teach him to lean it a little. Besides that his bike handling skills are excellent. He’s better than a number of adults I’ve seen.

We’ll probably hit the Veloway again on Saturday - time depending on the weather and our plans. Can’t be interfering with the Clone Wars birthday party (time TBD) for Spencer’s friend Oliver….

We did a training ride at the Austin Veloway today. Spencer kicked butt and took names. He absolutely rocked. The Veloway is a 3.1 mile cycling and inline skating loop. It’s got minimal ups and downs and one steep, but very short, hill. Thanks to Hurricane Ike, we had stiff winds from the north-northwest (by my estimate based on where we seemed to face the stiffest headwinds and easiest riding). On the first lap, a man probably mid-30s tried to pass Spencer, but had to abandon him and draft for a while. Way to go 8 year old boy!

We did 5 laps for a total of 15.5 miles. Each lap after the first, we stopped for 20-40 seconds for water (Spencer isn’t comfortable enough yet to drink while riding) at the start of the loop. Lap splits and average speeds:

1. 14:04.0, 13.2 MPH
2. 14:55.2, 12.5 MPH
3. 17:02.4, 10.9 MPH (we stopped an extra time for water mid-lap
4. 15:56.4, 11.7 MPH (we had an off-clock stop for a 4 minutes to talk to some other riders about the LIVESTRONG Challenge)
5. 16:16.3, 11.4 MPH

Wow! Overall average speed 11.9 MPH. Our target average speed for past training rides (more reports on that later) has been 10 MPH. With all the stopping and restarting for intersections on neighborhood streets, we have been pretty tight on that goal. I may need to revise our goals upward. I am beginning to think that I will (quite happily) lose this year’s bet with Spencer about ride distance and time.

Spencer handled the steep hill without difficulty. The first lap I warned him when it was coming and told him some people have to walk it. He told me the legs with the headwinds were much harder than the hill. With today’s winds, I agree.

Spencer finished tired, but reenergized quickly. On the way home we stopped at Spin City Cycling and picked up Spencer’s new handlebar stem which is a little shorter and seems to already make him more comfortable reaching for the hoods or riding sitting up straight. In the parking lot, he started riding laps for speed. Clearly he’s got the stamina to do more.

From here on, our weekend rides longer than an hour will be somewhere other than our neighborhood. We’ll either do the veloway or Parmer Lane out by Brushy Creek Lake Park

This is my first training report. Later, I will come back and summarize our plan (from the LIVESTRONG Challenge web site) and recent training (since we started following a plan). You can look at just our training rides by looking at entries with the “training” tag.