Here I am, ready to ride, the day before the National Multiple Sclerosis Society fundraising event, Cape Cod Getaway. Yup, tomorrow I'm going to ride 100 miles, known affectionately in the states as a "century." But am I really, really ready?

Nope.

Last year was a different story. Last year I was biking about 150 miles a week by now. Last year I was ripped. I logged a total of over 1,000 training miles. And last year I was only biking 75 miles the first day. This year I'm going in with only about 650 training miles to bike 100 miles the first day and 75 the second.

So, you might well ask if I poke you hard enough, what happened, eh?

Well I'll tell ya.

Weather

I try to avoid biking in the rain because it messes up my bicycle. Sometimes it takes like two days to get it right again after a good long ride in the pouring rain. Everything gets crusted over full of road dirt, including my ass. I did some riding in the rain, but with all the rain we had this spring, I would have had to ride in the rain two days a week for two months. That probably would have aggravated one of the other problems I had. I probably lost a week of training, cumulatively, due to weather.

Health

Twice this year I got colds - chills, aches, fever - real fun stuff. During some of that wonderful time I trained, but for about two weeks out of the twelve I was down for the count with some kind of illness.

Mechanical Failure

I've got to get my own tools and make more money so that I can afford more spare parts. The only way to totally avoid extended interruption to your training schedule is to keep your bike out of the shop.

This year a spoke busted in my rear wheel. No problem, I thought, I'll just bring it in to a popular bike chain with a good reputation. But no. Turns out I have a "unique rim and spoke" combination, no one can find a replacement spoke anywhere. Only by going up the chain of command to the store manager did I manage to pry my bike out of the shop in only a week.

So all told, I lost about a month of training because of these three causes. If I had been able to bike through, it should have been easy for me to log the 1,200 miles I had wanted to log this year.

Am I going to make it. Sure. I'll be on the bike 7 hours the first day and 5 hours the second. Will there be charlie horses involved? Definitely.

Bring it on.