I won't pretend to know anything about training for a ride like this, or any other for that matter. I just know what I did and how my body and mind have responded so far. Time will tell whether it was enough of the right thing.

I read a bunch of training guides on how to train for this or for that. In the end, I just got on the bike and started riding...a lot! I hadn't ridden at all since last summer and really didn't ride that much then either. I started out riding almost entirely flats along the bosque trail in Albuquerque. Mostly, just to get time in the saddle and a lot of easy miles in. The bosque trail follows the Rio Grande through Albuquerque from Alameda down to Rio Bravo with about a 5 mile loop at the end. The only incline is on this loop and it's pretty tame.

With a little (over) confidence from a few weeks of that, I took off down the trail and decided to climb the new Rio Bravo west extension that goes straight up and onto the west mesa, north past the Double Eagle airport, down through Paradise Hills and across town back home. Great idea, but I was nowhere near ready at the time.

I got a little sense kicked into me after I climbed this hill into a stiff wind and found myself totally exhausted and thirty miles from home. Not a great plan! I moved on.

I began to work more sensible climbs into my routine, eventually conquering pretty much every hill in town including the climb up the hill into Rio Rancho, up Tramway from I-25 to I-40 and even up the road to La Luz trail. I cheated on that a little bit. I used my mountain bike to get up that one!

My first official test came May 20th, when I rode the Santa Fe Century. A hundred and four very tough miles out of Santa Fe at 7,000+ feet elevation, through Madrid, Golden, Stanley, Galisteo, Lamy and back up to the starting point. The mountains were tough, but even worse was the wind and the afternoon heat. We paid dearly for the fifteen easy miles of flat riding with a tailwind when the course turned into a 30 mile struggle against a 17-18 mph wind. In the end, I completed the course and felt pretty good. I certainly didn't break any records, but I didn't break anything else either! I was just trying to figure out what pace would get me to the end.

The century ride was a real confidence builder. From there, I focused on distance, hills and finally speed. Doing back to back 70+ mile days was also key. I slayed a major mental dragon on that century ride, easily (yeah right!) topping a mountain where I'd torn up my knee almost ten years earlier.

Finally on my last major ride before the big trip, I tackled a course I'd laid out, but had never completed. I took off up Tramway, out of town through the canyon to Tijeras and back, across town and up the now dreaded Rio Bravo west extension onto the west mesa, north past the Double Eagle airport, down through Paradise Hills and across town back home. Talk about a ride AROUND town. It was the last big dragon still in the closet. Another one bites the dust! Hopefully, I'm ready...