The Streak (or, I Was Almost A Mutant)

I was just reflecting in an e-mail to my friend, Dennis Pedersen, about how I was doing a lot of climbing in the early part of this year.

And, when I was looking back at some of my records, I totally forgot about "The Streak", which was this magical period from February 28 through April 19 of this year, when I rode my bike every day - and most of those days involved a fair amount of climbing. You can see a record of all my rides (with my Garmin, anyway) right here.

In fact, during "The Streak", I rode for 51 days straight, and did 156,600 feet of climbing, which is an average of 3100 feet of climbing per day!

I also happened to have set a fair number of PBs (Personal Bests) during that streak, or just after the streak finally ended. I was even getting PBs on dead-tired legs (see my comments on day 12 of "The Streak" right here) !!

I didn't happen to plan "The Streak" - it was just one of those things that started spontaneously - I don't think I even paid any attention to it until I noticed I had ridden about 12 days straight - I think my previous "streak" was about 10 days of riding. So, I was suddenly on this roll...

And, during "The Streak", I even got sick for about a week, but still continued to ride (just doing easier rides for several days).

And why did "The Streak" finally come to an end? Simple - my youngest son, Grant, and I had to drive down to Oceanside for a couple of days for his surfing contest. I was going to bring my bike, but decided it probably would not really work out, since it was going to be just me and Grant for 2 or 3 days - it was a chance to do some good father/son bonding, which is what happened. Thus, my greatest streak came to a close at 51 days.

All in all, it was probably the single greatest period of my life on a bike - I was getting stronger, faster, and feeling healthier than ever - and my weight dropped down, too - which helped me immensely in setting those new PBs during that time.

Maybe I should start "The Next Streak"... :)

Gee, I was almost a mutant...