Training for Europe - Part Deux

Following my own advice, I've begun a cycling training regiment. The good news, after riding 10 miles yesterday, I was able to set out for a short two mile ride this morning. The bad news, my rear is hurting like hell, which means I need to stick with this if I am going to ride all the planned tours for my trip in August. Luckily, I started this regiment early enough to get myself in sufficient shape. After all, the pace I set for myself is much higher than the leisurely pace we will have on a cycle tour.

The one thing that does worry me slightly is the 22km (16 mile) ride in Amsterdam. However, the company we will be using does not take reservations. This means I will be able to determine the morning of the long tour whether or not we want to go. If we do not go, we will be able to spend the day site seeing in local museums (i.e., Van Gogh Museum, Rijksmuseum, Anne Frank House, etc...). We are definitely committed to the cycle tours in Brussels and Paris, but those will not be nearly as grueling as the Amsterdam Countryside Tour.

If you are considering any type of activities that require being in shape or any level of physical prowess, allow yourself sufficient time to build up your capability. After all the last thing you want to do is spend your vacation in pain and misery. Another tip I can pass on is when planning your itinerary, use Google Maps to determine major distances. Use these values to determine equivalent distances or benchmarks in your neighborhood and walk them .

I did this for a trip to the UK and it worked great for getting an idea for distance. We made sure to walk a specific route and found we were able to get around without tiring out. The only issue we ran across were hills (i.e., Royal Mile in Edinburgh). Living in Orlando, we do not have many elevation changes. To combat that you could train using an elliptical machine, treadmill, or bicycle on higher resistance levels or gears to build up your legs.

Plan for tomorrow, back on the bike for another two(+) mile ride (longer if my butt feels better) around the neighborhood. Wednesday, 30(+) minute ride to see if I am fully recovered. Next five months, try to ride at least three days a week, with one day of walking...