The Final Countdown

Since last July I’ve had my sights set on a goal of riding the Seattle to Portland bike ride. This is a right of passage for Northwest cyclists to say that they have completed this ride. It’s a 204 mile ride that is typically broken up into two days unless you’re nuts enough to do it in one which I’m not. I completed this ride back in 2007 as a solo effort but this year I’m going to do it with Jenny and my oldest son which should be a lot more fun. As neither one of them have ever completed a century this will be a great opportunity for them to pick up numbers 1 and 2 on consecutive days.

Now to the nerdiness of my cycling goals
Last July when we decided to do the STP I drew up a plan of how many miles I would need to ride each week in order to enjoy the ride and be ready when the event came around. Being the cycling nerd that I am I set up a spreadsheet to track my progress to the goal. After the first 3 weeks I fell behind my goal and in November and December my cycling grew almost nonexistent due to the holiday season level of slacktitude that I achieved. For those of you not familiar with the term Slacktitude here is the definition because I’m sure you’ll want to incorporate this into your everyday vocabulary.

Slacktitude, [slak-ti-tood] – A sedentary state caused by excessive sleep and massive consumption of pie, cookies, and cheese cake.

Because of the high level of stacktitude that I obtained during the holidays I generated myself an almost insurmountable cycling goal deficit. I thought about just deleting my goofy spreadsheet but I kept at it. Over the last 4 months I really kicked it in gear and have clawed my way out of the slacktitude hole that I dug and have surpassed my STP goal.



So, the STP is less than two weeks away and all that’s left are some dress rehearsal rides this week and some recovery next week. I’m planning on taking a lot of pictures of the ride. More to come.