Monday, July 11, 2011
Kim called from Kansas…about 1,400 miles from her jump off point in Akron…to give me an update on the bike across America. She is in the town of Eureka and, on the advice of cyclist she encountered traveling in the other direction, looked up Betsy for a place to stay the night. Turns out Betsy is just this wonderful person on the Trans America Trail for Cyclists that likes to help travelers when she can. She opens her house to cyclists and allows them a respite from camping on the ground in the City Parks and an opportunity to enjoy some air conditioning for a night. Kim’s group needed the air conditioning. “It was over 110 degrees yesterday and I ran out of water,” she told me. Towns are few and far between in Kansas on the Trail and she hadn’t filled her auxiliary one-gallon container when leaving her previous stop. “I was caked in salt and starting to get a chill when we finally reached Eureka. I’ve never been so thirsty in m life and I was getting worried,” she said. She should have been worried. Overheating is a serious issue and it comes on fast in the conditions to which she was exposed. I’d warned her when she left that, like me, she sweats a ton and needed to constantly replace fluids and sodium. She won’t make the mistake again.
The group she’s traveling with is averaging 75 miles a day and still heading for San Francisco. There is no danger of obesity in any members of the party…or any of the people they’re seeing on the road. Riding is such a tremendous way to stay in shape and you don’t have to take overnight trips to accomplish your fitness goals…though it sure can make it fun and interesting. I was surprised to learn how most of the towns along the Trans America Trail through Missouri and Kansas offer cyclists a place to camp and clean up. Apparently the City Parks are there for them and often include a pool and shower facilities…all at no charge. Kim told me they’ve only paid for one camp site since beginning the trip and that was in Ohio and Betsy wasn’t the first person to invite them into their homes for a night in a bed instead of sleeping on the ground. There are amazingly cool people all over this country.
I did the Survival Workout again, but managed a couple of new records. I break my push-ups into three sets, completing 125 which broke my old record of 118. The last set is done as I reach the car and is the last thing I do before leaving. I managed to squeeze out 40, which is quite an accomplishment for me since I’ve done so many other things with my arms by that point. I also managed 6 pull-ups while hanging from an uneven branch on a Maple tree near the old Girl Scout cabins. The pull-up is such a great measure of strength to weight since all of your weight needs to be moved by the muscles of your upper body. I could barely do one when I began the blog and I think I could hit ten if I was fresh and using a pull-up bar. I’ll test that theory soon as I’m outfitting the garage with some things I need to augment the workout.
Survival Workout duration: 60 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 100 to 150 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 600
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