Since July 2025, I have been working with my Coach – Tom Murray of Vision Quest Coaching out of Chicago. The first order of business for me was to switch from my Triathlon bike to a Road Bike in the Spring of 2025. Since this trip is through Trek Travel, we obviously will be riding Trek bikes. So I got the same model that we will be using on the trip – the Trek Domane SLR 7 – their top of the line road bike. I will not be riding my own bike on the trip. I will take my pedals, saddle, GPS and other equipment and Trek provides us with the bike to keep. Many people have asked me – “What the heck does a ‘cycling coach’ do”? Well, he has done so much more than to show me how to train. He has built my cycling strength up block by block through months of varying workouts, distances and techniques. Given the flat terrain in coastal SC, it is very difficult to build power with no hills to climb. I can do a 6 1/2 hour 100+ mile ride and have an elevation gain of only 650 feet, you simply can’t build cycling power with that kind of terrain. Tom thus designed a workout plan focused heavily on interval training with numerous variations, distances, and timing. The workouts download from an App called Training Peaks directly to my Garmin GPS and I have different power zones to target thus simulating hills and elevation changes that you would encounter on most bike rides outside the Lowcountry of SC. Cycling power is measured in wattage that is generated from a device called a Power Meter that measures torque and is integrated into my pedals. The power wattage generated is then depicted on my GPS unit through a bluetooth connection. So, as I pedal harder, the wattage generated goes up and I can see that on my GPS unit. I also wear a heart rate monitor on a chest strap that similarly downloads to my GPS unit. All of this equipment has been a key component of my training plan. For the last 12 months now, Tom has been analyzing and providing feedback on every one of my rides by looking at things like my heart rate, cycling cadence, power metrics, speed, distance and elevation gain. Every designated ride has a Training Stress Score or TSS that measures the difficulty of the ride and we are looking at things like the Efficiency Factor or EF of the ride that is measured by the Normalized Power divided by the Average Heart Rate – the higher the number the better. All of my training is designed to increase my FTP – Functional Threshold Power. FTP is the maximum wattage that a cyclist can maintain for 1 hour. Theoretically, the stronger you get, the higher your FTP will go. We also talked occasionally over a video call as we progressed throughout the months of training. Over the winter months when riding outside wasn’t really possible, I spent countless hours on my Wahoo Kickr Indoor Cycling Trainer that I set up inside my home office. This equipment consists of a Wi-Fi connected flywheel to which I attached an older Giant road bike that is integrated with my Training Peaks app on my iPad. I simply download the workout to my iPad and off I go for a 90-120 minute training session with the flywheel and video connection simulating hills, flats and descents with varying resistance on the flywheel. I have a large indoor fan to keep me cool while on the bike but always end up with a puddle of sweat on the mat after every training session. It truly is realistic training and has allowed me to effectively train in cold weather. The downside of this training method, however, is that my office kind of smells like a locker room! To maintain strength and aerobic fitness, I continued my weight workouts and 1.5 mile swims 5-6x a week at the YMCA until the cycling training started to get in the way in the warmer months. I have also committed a significant amount of time every week doing leg strength work focused on lunges with dumbbells and weighted Bulgarian split-squats. At Tom’s recommendation, I also spent a week in April in Greenville, SC with the Trek Travel Cycling Camp where I learned techniques and body-positioning for climbing and descending and completed a series of challenging rides in the Carolina Foothills. Later in May, I traveled to Solvang, CA near Santa Barbara to train with Vision Quest Coaching in the hills of California and had a series of training rides with Tom himself. Earlier this summer I also spent several weeks in Greenville spending as much time in the hills as possible so that I could to continue building my strength and endurance. Near the end of the summer as the start date got closer, I was doing around 350-400 miles a week and in late July, my training capstone was 3 days of consecutive 100+ mile rides. Getting prepared for this trip cannot be taken lightly. There is a steep physical price to pay and there are no shortcuts – you have to put in the miles. I can’t thank Tom enough for his friendship and encouragement along the way, but most importantly, he also instilled in me the confidence and mental discipline needed to get ready for this ride. I am 100% ready and can’t wait to get going – I think!
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