Okay April was going to be a big month no matter how I looked at it. I had a lot of things going — foremost among them, my training for Paris-Brest-Paris 2027, and items on my 101 Things in 1001 Days project.
- Training/First Brevet/Bike Mods
- Start DAMN Logistics
- 101 Things in 1001 Days Work
The downside was, some stuff we’d been worrying about came to pass, and a large chunk of April was spent moving my mom into memory care and dealing with that transition.
Training/First Brevet/Bike Mods
Training is the first thing we’ll cover. The first week of April was spent working my way through the remainder of my Base phase work, followed by a much-needed rest week. But, then, starting the week of Monday the 13th, my training volume increased significantly as I moved into 8-week Build segment.
Bike mods were pretty limited during this phase, as my brevet was a short one. I got the aerobar installed, switched to pavement tires so that I would be well-appointed for the brevet, and got my crappy battery-powered lights onto the bike, since I wouldn’t need the generator-powered lights until my longer stuff later this year. The plan has been for a Zipp 303 Firecrest with a SON 28 generator hub, and while the parts did get ordered, I didn’t get to the point of lacing up just yet, but that’s in the cards for the near future.
Lastly, there’s the brevet itself. I was scheduled for the City Slickers 200km, and while I was feeling pretty good about it, logistics around the memory care stuff mentioned above meant that I had to dump this as a possibility. Sadface. I’m calling this whole subsection a FAIL.
Start DAMN Logistics
I knew I was going to need to do a bunch of shit to start getting ready for the DAMN — it’s not until August 1st, but I wanted to be ready ahead of time. This month I managed to:
- lace up and finish building my backup wheelset
- create a packing list
- figure out strategy for rest stops
- download a copy of the route, so I can pre-drive
I got about half of these things done. FAIL.
101 Things in 1001 Days
I decided to blast through as much of this as possible this month. Unfortunately, I didn’t get anything accomplished. FAIL.
Minor/Other Accomplishments
- None.
Reading
Blockers
- We had to move mom into memory care this month, and that transition chewed up an entire week of training and productivity. I’m not complaining — it was the right thing to do — but man, paring down her stuff for another transition was hard.
- TV: The West Wing, Scrubs (2026), Daredevil: Born Again, For All Mankind.
Lessons Learned
- Flexibility with deadlines is important. Beating yourself up over not getting everything done while life is shitting the bed around you is stupid and self-defeating.
