Rides: Michigan Mountain Mayhem – Part One

Last winter, when I signed up to do the 100-mile Michigan Mountain Mayhem ride, I was hoping it would give me more motivation to keep training through the cold months. That it did. I was pretty religious about hitting the rollers in the basement, and I was consistently doing two- or three-hour rides on the weekends. In April, I was doing hill repeats and intervals on the weekdays and long rides on the weekends.

Then came May. My training program broke down. I had a parental visit (which was wonderful), then some bad weather, followed by a 12-day business trip to Asia. While on the road, I was pretty good about hitting the hotel gym an hour each day to run on the treadmill or grind away on the stationary bike.  But it wasn’t enough to prepare for a hilly century.

I decided to do the ride anyway because I was curious about whether Michigan really had a mountain. The state has been a generally good place to live the past couple years, but the one thing I don’t like about it is the lack of interesting topography. OK, right, I’m from Kansas, so I shouldn’t be talking. But one thing I learned from the 10+ years I spent in Asia, mostly surrounded by mountains, is that I need some elevation in my life. So off I went to the Michigan Mountain Mayhem.

Next: Camping out.