Disclaimer: This 2021 Reston Century Tour recap contains affiliate links… Picking the Right Distance In its 38th year, the Reston Century Tour, organized by Reston Bike Club (RBC), has four distances from which to choose – century, 80 miles, metric century, and half metric century. Bill and I completed our first organized metric century […]
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links… Send Positive Vibes My Way We’ll be heading out for the Reston Century shortly after this publishes so if you’re reading this prior to our expected finish time of around 2 PM, please send positive vibes my way! Overview of the Week Before discussing each day’s workouts, […]
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links… Fueling, My Biggest Challenge As a marathoner, I always said, “Point me in a direction and I can run forever.” Bonking when running was never a problem, but when cycling… Learning how to avoid bonking while cycling versus running took a little while for me to figure out. […]
A Simple Training Plan Always looking to for a challenge and to push it to the next level, Bill and I registered for the August 22nd Reston Century. My training plan was pretty simple… • Spend more time in the saddle with three to four rides per week • Ride at least one 70-miler • […]
I’ve Been Down This Road Before Shortly after returning home from Tuesday morning’s bike ride I got the call I was expecting, but with additional information I didn’t anticipate. Just five days earlier I’d had a biopsy on a new growth on my upper lip – both my dermatologist and I suspected it was a […]
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links… Missing Most of the Olympics I put my sleep as a priority a couple of years ago and even bought a Fitbit (affiliate link) to track my sleep. I have a long way to go to get the recommended 8 hours per night, but I’ve come a long […]
It’s time to sit down once again with a beverage of your choice and chat – I’ll remind you that I don’t like coffee or tea so my drink of choice today will be water. Let’s chat about things other than just running, cycling, training, and complaining about our most recent injuries. Sound good? […]
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links… Becoming Familiar with Two of the Four Climbs There will be four significant climbs during the Reston Century: • Woodburn Road – .9 miles long (11% steepest, 4.5% average grade) at mile 31 • Taylorstown Road – 1.3 miles long (17.7% steepest, 6.1% average grade) at mile 61 […]
Training for My First Century Always looking to for a challenge and to push it to the next level, Bill and I registered for the August 22nd Reston Century. My training plan is pretty simple – spend more time in the saddle with 3 to 4 rides per week and to get a 70-miler under […]
Disclaimer: This 41-Mile Mount Weather Climbing Tour recap contains affiliate links… Destination: Top of the Mountain Mount Weather is easily identifiable from the many roads traversing western Loudoun County and is often a convenient landmark during our gravel rides. From down below, the open clearing on the spine of the Blue Ridge Mountains is […]
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links… Crazy Sleep Numbers Just for fun I have to show how my Fitbit is suddenly whacked out with tracking my sleep. It died on Thursday, but I successfully reset it and it started working fine until today’s weird naps. Saturday’s (shown as today) 10:23 PM – 5:47 AM […]
The Rare Outlier Even though the deafening sound of cicadas had dwindled to a mere hum by early July, we still hear the rare outlier making his presence known as we’re mostly able to return to enjoying the peace and quiet of our back yard. My History with Cicadas In 1987, long before referring […]
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links… Fourteen Miles, High by Today’s Numbers Still sidelined from last week’s removal of a squamous cell carcinoma on the top of my left shoulder, I couldn’t ride my bike or use my left arm while strength training. Not one to just sit around, I worked around my restrictions. […]
About the Firecracker 5K The 2021 Firecracker 5K, hosted by PR Races, celebrated its 12th anniversary on Independence Day. It was my 9th consecutive year of running what has become one of my favorite races, and it was fabulous running it live this year after having to complete it virtually last year. I can’t think […]
Cramming It All in While I Can In typical Debbie fashion, I intentionally planned out a busy week of workouts in anticipation of being sidelined for up to two weeks after a scheduled surgical procedure on Friday morning. Expecting warnings of not pulling my stitches with my active lifestyle, I ran, I lifted weights, and […]
And That’s a Wrap on Summer Vacations After a week at the farm with my Mom, Bill and I spent four whirlwind days at the beach before calling it quits on our summer getaways until after the baby arrives. Normally, we spend the third week of July visiting my mom and at least a week […]
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links… Squeezing Workouts into a Visit at the Farm Bill and I spent the week visiting my mom, but carved in a little time most days for working out. It was a whirlwind trip (Monday to Friday) so we really only had three days full days to workout while […]
Disclaimer: This Virginia Creeper Trail: 36-Mile Damascus to Whitetop Mountain Climb and Descent recap contains affiliate links… What Goes up, Surely is Fun Coming Down Two summers ago Bill rode his bike to the top of Whitetop Mountain on the Virginia Creeper Trail from Damascus while we were visiting my mom; and joining him […]
Disclaimer: This Loudoun 1725 Gravel Grinder recap contains affiliate links… This Is Not a Race The 1725 Gravel Grinder ended up being one of the most fun events in which I’ve participated in a very long time. Even though we had no intention to race the 40-mile event (60 and 80 milers were also […]
We’re Back, Baby I walked out of the 55+ community gym on March 12, 2020, and as a non-resident, I wasn’t cleared to return until two weeks ago. Once the clubhouse opened up to normal hours and without temperature checks, hourly closings for cleanings, etc., management wanted to get it back to normal as quickly […]
