← Blog/August 29, 2026 · 2 min read
134 Miles. We Did It.
August 29th. 134.26 miles around the Bay. This is what the whole training journal was building toward.
August 29, 2026. Race day.
I started riding at 6:01 this morning. I finished 134.26 miles and 4,319 feet of climbing later, 9 hours and 38 minutes after that alarm went off.
This is what the whole journal was about.
The numbers
- Distance: 134.26 miles
- Moving time: 9 hrs 38 min
- Elevation: 4,319 ft
- Avg power: 111W
- Work: 3,843 kJ
- PRs: 16
Average power looks low on paper. At mile 90 it felt like anything but. The body does what it can do after six, seven, eight hours in the saddle. You don't need to be fast. You need to keep moving.
What the day actually felt like
The first two hours were fine. Cool morning, Bay to your left, legs cooperating. Somewhere around hour four I started doing the math that every long-distance rider does, the math where you calculate how many miles are left and immediately regret it.
Hours five and six are where this ride lives. That's where months of early mornings, FTP tests, and slow weekday spins either show up or they don't. For me, today, they showed up. Not fast. Not pretty. But present.
Sixteen PRs over 134 miles means the training worked. It also means I've ridden this route enough times that the Bay has a memory of me, and today I was a little better version of the person who rode it last time.
What I want you to take from this
I started this training journal in May with an FTP of 216W and a weight of 209.8 lbs. That's 2.27 W/kg. FTP is a measure of sustained power, and 2.27 W/kg is solidly recreational. Not a number that looks impressive. A number that says: ordinary person, trying.
Every post in this journal was an attempt to answer the question I get asked constantly: how do you ride 135 miles? The answer is that you don't ride 135 miles. You ride three miles on a Tuesday when you're tired, and then you ride 18 on a Saturday when you have time, and then you do that for months. The 135-mile day is just the day all those ordinary rides finally add up.
If you've been reading along and quietly wondering whether you could do this, I think you probably could. Not this year. But August 2027 is a thing that will exist.
What's next
Today I rest. This week I rest. After that, I'll start thinking about what next year looks like and how to get there smarter.
Thank you to everyone who rode today, everyone who volunteered, everyone who donated, and everyone who followed along. The Bay is a big place. It's better with company.
If you didn't make it out this year, the 2026 ride is done, but TheBayRide.com will have everything you need to be part of 2027. August 29th was one day. The next one will come around.
From the ride
Ride the Bay with us
The Bay Ride is a charity bike ride around the Bay Area. 135 miles all the way around, or a 35-mile option from SF to Oakland.
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