The Great March!

I love Spring! I love seeing the explosion of color all around. And I love Daylight Savings Time (DST), when all of a sudden there’s that extra hour of daylight in the afternoon. The teacher part of me that faces a 50 minute commute and has to get up in the dark again isn’t so crazy about it, but the cyclist part of me gets ecstatic. Because of my schedule I’m relegated to riding after school. However when sunset is at 5:30pm or so, it’s difficult to get out of work, take care of issues after work, and then get a ride in before it gets too dark. This means I spend January and February in the gym working on the spin bike and very few miles on the road.

However once DST rolls around, The Girl gets tuned up, the bike rack goes on the PT Cruiser and it’s time to ride! This past March was the month that I logged more miles on the saddle than in any other month in my life. I managed to log 380 miles on the bike. I had a pretty successful Solvang ride, and am feeling pretty good about climbing “El Tigre” on the Rosarito-Ensenada ride on April 16th. For the uninitated, El Tigre is a 2 mile hill that starts at sea level and climbs over 800 feet in just over 2 miles. It's the only real challenge in what is otherwise a breathtakingly beautiful ride.

At this point my goal is to keep the momentum going. While I’ve set a goal of about 300 miles per month for the year, you can see by the chart I fell short in January and February. A few more months of March and I’ll make up the deficit. It has helped that I’ve been on Spring Break however I also have the motivation of a couple of rides that are coming up these next few months: The aforementioned Rosarito-Ensenada in April, the San Diego Century in May and the Los Angeles River Ride in June. The latter will be my first attempt at a full century! I’m feeling confident right now because DST stands for Days on the Saddle Time.

Ride on!