Dogs and Training Schedules

Last night the three of us went to the Tri-County Bicycle Association’s club meeting. It was a great meeting. The guest speaker was Hector Hernandez who operates First Class Dog Training, a company that trains police dogs. He has a wealth of experience with dogs and a great understanding of when and how the attack. Hector also trains mail carriers in this area on how to deal with dog and how to avoid bits. Last year, none of the mail carries he trained were bitten, while there were 14 bites the previous year.
He is in the process of writing a book called “Preparing Yourself for Dog Encounters” with a chapter devoted specifically for cyclists. Well worth getting when it comes out.
This evening we sat down as a family and planned our training schedule. Lois will be training with us for her own fitness goals. Starting the first of April we will be doing 4-5 rides each week. The daily rides will begin at about 15 miles and build to 25-30 mile each ride. On the weekend we will be building to about 70-100 mile rides, with a shorter “D” ride on Sabbath’s.
For the planning we first looked at the TCBA ride incentive program and talked about how we could lead rides in this area and share the ride leader points and thus build points quickly. Then we set a goal of the long rides just before our Tour and set a schedule to build up to those rides on a weekly basis. Then we filled in the weekly rides the fit our schedule. It will make for a busy, but enjoyable spring! Keith is excited about the incentive program and we are ready to start.
Doug Fattic was to have picked up our bikes this week. We haven’t heard back from him, but will call on Sunday and schedule a time to pick them up.