Preparing yourself for a 3800-mile bike ride across the country takes time, effort and patience. Not only is it a physical readiness, but also requires a mental readiness. My ride is taking place in August, 2025 — a mere 9 months from now. In reality, I started my preparation in September of 2024 upon deciding to throw my name into the ring for the waiting list. I decided that I would begin to prepare for the ride even before I knew I was going to do it.
I have a dear friend that I’ve known since we were 12 years old who recently published her first book about trusting your magic and did a session on magnetic vision boards. I sat in on her session on the vision boards, and while I’ve only ever done one once in my life (for the record — I’m doing another one this year), I’ve found that taking action the way I did with preparing for the ride even before I knew I was going to do the ride, leads to things like being laid off such that you are now free to ride and in the same week having a spot open on the ride so that you can know make the decision to actually do it.
The Trek team offers coaching services to help ready you for the journey, but I wanted to work with a known entity. I contacted my coach at NVDM Coaching to ask whether this is something she’d be able to help with given that their focus is primarily coaching for triathletes. Given that cycling is a key component of triathlon training, I took a chance that we could find our way around readying me for this type of endurance ride. 3800 miles over 48 days translates into roughly 70–80 miles per day. Not insignificant. I emailed both Natasha and my coach, McKenzie, and McKenzie’s response was a resounding ‘yes’. She was confident that we could build the appropriate plan and get my body ready.
Around the same time, I began working with my friend, Carol, who wrote the book and joined her wellness program in early October. Her focus for healthy weight management and well being is on macros and strength training.
I had long been a cardio girl — in spite of Natasha’s repeated comments that triathlon is a strength sport and encouragement to focus on the strength training more than the cardio. Or, at least, when limited to a workout a day and there are both cardio and strength on any given day — do the strength training. I began to get back into the gym and commit to strength training in earnest, not only to feel better about myself but also to build up my strength as a key element to readying myself for the ride.
My goal was to find the right balance between Carol’s program and McKenzie’s training. I opted to bring in more strength training from Carol’s program by adding another day of strength work to the program, and combining that with increasing the duration of the workouts from 45 minutes as she did, to an hour as McKenzie had them. Carol’s program called for at least 30 minutes of steady state cardio each day, while McKenzie’s had at least an hour in most cases with the exception of the odd run day with only 45 minutes.
I set up time to meet with McKenzie to review and discuss the proposed schedule to ensure we were considering the impact on my 54 year-old body. It wasn’t going to be easy to lift 4 days a week and have at least an hour of cardio every day, so we decided to build in a couple of days of swimming to maintain the cardio but reduce the wear and tear on my body. Frankly, I also like the mix of a third cardio discipline so I’m not always just running or biking.
At the same time, I worked with Carol to adjust my macros. Her guidance around the balance and mix of macros worked well for those on the 30 minute steady state cardio program and a 30–45 minute strength training session. Four of my seven days a week are, on average, 2 hours plus of training with at least an hour of strength training and an hour of cardio. The other three days are generally 1–2 hours of cardio. This requires an overall increase in calories given that my activities have me burning anywhere from 500 to 1500 calories a day specific to my training. We needed to adjust the mix to ensure I was eating enough and ensuring that I had the appropriate balance of protein, carbohydrates, and fat.
Through this early phase, I am still looking to lose weight to ensure I’m not pushing extra weight for that distance. I only need to self-propel what’s absolutely necessary. Once I hit my goal weight, I’ll look to do another adjustment of my macros to maintain my weight. At the moment, I’m losing about a pound a week and am down just under ten pounds since starting in earnest in late October. This means I’m losing a significant amount of body fat as I’m in the gym lifting heavy and building muscle mass. Since muscle weighs more than fat, and I’m gaining muscle with my lifting — there is a fair amount of fat being displaced. My body is becoming an efficient fat burning and muscle building machine.
Two plus hours of workouts daily — even with the right amount of calories and macro mix — can be tiring. I’m prioritizing sleep and routine, and periodic afternoon naps when necessary. There are days when I am just plain tired. We may find we need to work on a three week on and one week off schedule meaning we have three weeks of regular training and then one week of a lighter schedule. This ensures my body has the appropriate time to rest.
Once I know my weekly schedule, I think about my eating. My macro mix is roughly 160 grams of protein, 110 grams of carbohydrates, and 60 grams of fat daily. This totals 1620 calories. I track everything I eat daily using the Lose It app on my phone. I have my macro goals as well as other goals set in the app so I can track against these goals daily. I am mostly within 95% of this mix and total calorie intake daily. I don’t beat myself up about being at 120 grams of carbohydrates on heavier days knowing that my body needs this. Overall, I’m not beating myself up about any of it.
Generally, I start my day with a cafe au lait with about 5 ounces of milk and about 2 ounces of chicory coffee. I heat this in the microwave and enjoy it with one half an Ezekiel English Muffin with about one teaspoon of almond butter. This ensures I have something in my stomach before I start my workout. I used to workout without eating anything first, but have found that even just this little bit of nourishment helps me. If I’m swimming in the morning, the coffee sits next to the end of the pool on the deck so that I can enjoy a hit of coffee as well as water. I’m eating satiating meals of whole foods including copious amounts of egg whites to help hit my protein goals while not exceeding the fat goal. I do keep a dark chocolate bar on hand in the fridge and enjoy a square of that every now and then. Most of my day I eat a mix of the same things — egg white omelettes, Ezekiel English Muffins, greek yogurt, berries, chicken, greens — and then I try and have a different dinner every night. What I enjoy about the macro eating method is that I can have a little pasta now and then as long as I track it. If I want a small chocolate chip cookie as a treat now and then — I can have that too. I just track it and balance my day accordingly.
Most importantly on the nutrition front is that I’m giving up alcohol. I’ve not been a heavy drinker and only drink wine or the occasional beer. I celebrated a bit over the holidays, but now that they are over I’m looking forward to a dry January and, possibly, a dry 2025. If I choose to have a glass of wine at some point — it will be a rare occasion. I really do feel better when not drinking and sleep much better. Sleep, as I mentioned, is key.
That’s the physical. Then there is the mental. Each Sunday McKenzie posts my weekly workouts in Training Peaks. I review the schedule and assess against what I have planned for the week. We have an agreement that I can move things around as needed. I tend to do some shifting to make the schedule work around commitments I have, but also to look at what is going to be mentally palatable. For example, I like to carefully consider the swimming days and where they fit into the week. I try to ensure that I have them following heavy days where possible to give me something different on the calendar and know that my body will have a little less physically stressful day.
Mostly, there aren’t any absolutely taxing workouts, but there are still days that I wish I didn’t have to workout. Truthfully, nothing is making me workout other than me. It’s my choice. I understand that. I have made the choice to take on this challenge, and I’ve done so ensuring that I show up well-prepared to ride feeling strong and ready to ride.
