Understanding This Blog

I plan to use a similar format for each day’s blog entry & most of it will be self explanatory - miles today, total trip miles, average speed.  Some others will be familiar to bikers & workout athletes, but I will explain them a bit here:

Feet Climbed is how much uphill pedaling happened that day.  Certainly some downhills probably will occur also, but bikers just consider that to be free.

Fatigue Factor (FF) is a subjective judgement by me on how hard the day’s ride was.  I will use a scale of 1 - 10 with 10 being the most fatigue. (Hope there aren’t too many of those)

There are two other entries I plan to make that are probably unique to me & require extended explanation:

Motivational Partner (MP) - I’ve previously written that our tour operator, Bubba, says that the most important thing to bring along on this Coast 2 Coast biking adventure is a good attitude & previous Coasters have said that almost everyone, at some point on the trip, wants to quit.  That can result in a bad attitude.  To help fend that off, I have come up with the idea (in consultation with Coach Rudy) of having an MP for each riding day.  This will be either a person, a family, or a group who are significant to me.  My intention is to keep them in mind as I ride that day.  I will say a quick prayer for them, offer my efforts for their benefit, and I plan to generate energy & motivation from their spirit throughout the day.  There are 45 riding days.  I am randomly assigning each day, except April 22nd, the last day.  That day is reserved for the love of my life, Joanne, who has put up with my crazy ideas for almost 45 years.  Each day’s MP will be listed in the blog for that day.

What Did You Learn Today (WDYLT) -  Most of my family & friends know that I have dedicated a large amount of energy to promoting the idea that everybody learns something every day, and that sharing it with others is a great benefit to & adds to the collective knowledge of the community.  This has been happening in the Wesp home during meals since the 1980’s.  If you doubt that, just check with any of my 5 daughters.  I have personally also found that knowing I will be sharing what I learned that day makes me more alert & aware of things that are happening.  I believe this has made me a better person overall.  Since my daughters are all on their own now, Joanne & I still share with each other, but I have also taken to Twitter with a daily post of what I learned.  During the C2C tour, I will forego the Twitter post & include WDYLT in my blog post.  My hope is that some of my readers will see the wisdom of WDYLT & include the practice in their own lives.  All posts will start out with ILT, which stands for I learned that.