This week starts my 100 Mile Challenge. The goal is to do something I have never done before; to bike within 1 week a total of 100 miles. Many people who ride bikes for some time can do this in 1 day. For me, it is a start of a goal that hopefully will grow with time.
I’m going to take this post to track my journey every day as I push forward to this goal. The plan is to go one day on the road bike for longer miles and then alternate with a mountain bike trail ride that is a shorter distance but will build strength. Along with way I will share thoughts daily.
I will also begin to track my steps and activity during the day to make sure I’m being active prior to my rides. I’m going to be using the FitBit Zip. Its the basic one from the FitBit line of wearable health products, but does plenty for what I need.
Day 1 – 17.88 miles; 82.12 remaining
Day 1 // Road Bike
Today started off later in the day as I wasn’t able to arrive at the start of the ride until after 7 pm. Posting my challenge last week got some of my friends intrigued to start my challenge together. So, I met with 3 other friends at Erwin Park to start and the plan was to do go 8.5 miles one way and then turn around and come back for a total of 17+ miles. Due to our late start we wanted to make sure we arrived back at the start of the ride before it got dark and dangerous to ride on a country road.
Originally I wanted to bike at a minimum of 20 miles my first day, but it was great to ride with more bikers and have a goal of finishing as close to possible within 1 hour for a ride. I rode for a total of 17.88 miles a little bit slower than I was hoping (16.1 mph) but overall the first day felt great. Eager for the trail ride tomorrow.
I will be tracking all of my rides with the MapMyRide+ app which tracks great basic statistics.
Day 2 – 10.55 miles; 71.57 remaining
Day 2 // Mountain Bike
The second day of my 100 mile challenge was a mountain bike ride on the great official DORBA trail at Erwin Park. The normal trail is approximately 7.5 miles but I started off where there is a little over 2 miles left in the trail and then continued on the complete trail to get me over the 10 mile mark.
It was a great ride as the temperature was around 95 degrees when I started as the sun was going down and during my ride I caught the sunset and a nice breeze in the wooded area of the trail that made the ride really comfortable but exhausting at the same time as I pushed myself to actually have my personal best average of 8.5 mph on the trail.
Tomorrow I’m planning to hit the road again and to go solo in order to push myself to over 20 miles in 1 ride. It’s getting challenging to make sure I finish my ride before it gets dark in order to avoid dangerous situation with cars on the road. Will be equipped with lights to help.
- Day 2 FitBit Stats: 9,218 steps and 4.3 miles traveled.
Day 3 – 20.19 miles; 51.38 remaining
Day 3 // Mountain Bike on the Road.
Almost middle of the week and I’m nearly halfway to 100 miles. Today I decided to try a Route Suggestion from MapMyRide+ that was at a minimum 20 miles. I found this great route that was perfect as it was near a good place I can start. Only problem was that it must be where someone else started near their home and I didn’t go the exact route. Either way, I pushed it today to get over a 20 mile ride.
The bad news was that I had to use my mountain bike on the road because when I checked the PSI on my tires before leaving for the ride, the stem broke on the front tire and all of the air went out. I didn’t have a replacement tube, so I didn’t want to lose a day and decided I would have a slower mph average but I was equipped with a front and rear light to be ready for some night riding.
Tomorrow I’m going to get a tube and fix the tire so I can do road bike ride and hopefully push it to get a 25 mile day.
- Day 3 FitBit Stats: 17,676 steps and 8.2 miles.
Day 4 – 26.78 miles; 24.60 remaining
Day 4 // Long Road Bike ride
I’m in that phase now where I was eager to start my ride and put in a solid long ride for the week. I mapped out a 25 mile course on MapMyRide+ with their online tool before the ride and prepped with a new tube in the road bike, an extra tube (just in case), a few CO2 cartridges in case of a flat, and I was ready to go.
I was pushing strong for over 4 miles when I had to stop at an intersection and accidentally ended my ride at 4.61 miles on the MapMyRide app. So I had to start another ride on the app to make sure I tracked all of the ride. Really disappointed that I had to break the time in the app like that. I need to submit a bug to MapMyRide that they need to add a Back button before you fully save the ride.
Mapping my course to ride through 2 beautiful cities of McKinney, Frisco, and up and coming Town of Prosper was a treat. Wide open fields and low traffic. Unfortunately my 16.2 mph average between both times is near my average. I was hoping to be faster but there were a lot of hills on the course where by mile 17 they were painfully slow to go up. Riding the mountain bike yesterday helped with the strength, but not enough.
So far I’m on course to hit my goal by Saturday. Tomorrow I am meeting with a friend to ride more casually but still want to be near 20 miles for the day to leave the 100 mile mark for a nice mountain bike trail ride.
- Day 4 FitBit Stats: 14,423 steps and 6.6 miles
Day 5 – 28.53 miles; 3.9 miles over 100
Day 5 // Hit my 100 mile Goal!
Today I hit 100 miles for the week!
As the week went by I wanted to seek out great places to ride in the DFW area to add more experiences to my 100 mile journey. If you are from the Dallas area, there is no better place to bike, run or walk than White Rock Lake in Dallas. It has a 9.33 mile paved loop designated for biking, running, or walking. The lake itself is also a perfect backdrop for a casual ride or for those that want to train. Since moving to the Dallas area I’ve always wanted to ride there and now was the time.
My goal was to do the course 2 times and leave the 100 mile mark for tomorrow, but as I rode the first time around the ride was so nice I decided to do it a second time before a friend of mine that we chatted before hand would arrive for us to ride together.
Sure enough by the time I finished the second time around my friend arrived and I did the course twice in a little over an hour with a great avg speed of 17.3 mph. I started the 3rd time with my friend and we rode more casually and this time I was going to hit my 100 mile goal! In total for the day I rode 28.53 miles. My longest ride of the week!
It’s amazing to have hit this goal in 5 days. I knew with the right consistency and preparation I would be able to do it. Thank God there were no major obstacles or injuries along the way. The great thing is, I still have tomorrow as Sunday I am planning to be a rest day.
I’m really excited for tomorrow as I’m meeting up with another friend to finish off my week with a nice casual ride at one of the best mountain bike trails in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. I can’t wait!