http://app.strava.com/activities/45580546

Time: 3:42
Distance: 63.5 mi
Avg Power: 163 watts (180 watts)
Avg HR: 136
Avg Speed: 17.1 mph

2300 calorie ride, not bad. Of course I probably had 1000 calories while on the ride. Still I pigged out for dinner big time.

By looking at the avg heart rate it's obvious I could have ridden this a bit harder, probably up to about 18 mph, but I tend to sort of meander by myself a bit, not really working that hard. (My heart rate should/could have been more in the 145 range)

Oh good tomorrow is forecast to have an absolutely brutal north wind. That should be fun. I plan to ride 68 miles tomorrow.

Good tips on the route selecting. I used to avoid the busier roads but I've come to realise they're not too bad. There's one main road here that I've started using more and more because I've found that because it's fairly straight and wide the cars have plenty of time to see you and will give you plenty of space.

The figure-of-8 is a good idea as long as you are motivated not to ditch at halfway!

Definitely with you on choosing a route with as few turns as possible. I've taken the wrong turning several times because I've tried to memorise the route pre-ride then been too lazy to bother looking at the map.

Did you get any photos?

Ended up not taking camera, kind of left in a rush. Have it with me now but I prob won't carry it, its cold and windy as hell. In fact I think this ride isn't going to happen, I'm only one here.

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Did about 55 miles today. Worst grind ever. Wind was 20-25mph the whole way. Last 15 miles was straight into it and grinding up hill.

Total for the week is about 235. It's not 250 but I'll take it. I did take some pics today, I'll post some later.

Details here: http://app.strava.com/activities/45738948

Time: 3:26
Distance: 54 mi
Avg Power: N/A
Avg HR: 160 (190)
Avg Speed: 15.5 mph

There is a simple over-training test you can do to see if you need to take days off - you take your heart rate in the morning and if it's high in the morning before you do anything, you need rest.

I think I can skip this and just do like a 10 question memory or thinking test. I am legitimately stupid after a few days of hard work.

This evening, I went out with the boy for dinner. I forgot to order fried rice to bring home for later. I left my credit card in teh restaurant. I went next door to a grocery store, got like 9 things and forgot to get the one thing I came for. I went back to get my credit card and forgot to leave a tip. Then I went back to leave a tip.

Anyway I am pretty stoked for this week. I need to ride only 150 miles by my "plan" and I'll be doing those all in one glorious/awful weekend this weekend, so I have zero biking to do monday-thursday. I'll probably run tues/wed or tues/thurs, nothing major.

Some pictures from sunday's ride. No masterpieces in the bunch, it's really pretty boring landscape out east of here, flat prairie mostly.

You can look here on flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/6519815...7633092845444/

But here's some individual pics inline

A man and his bike



Bike with tree



Almost to mighty Coupland



Just in case you don't believe how bleak it is...



Lunch (and yes I felt like a total tool taking it)



Tracks and some dilapidated building on the edge of Coupland

Great pics - I'd kill for a sky like that right now, been a while since we saw the sun!

Where did you get the 'que'? I've been to Coopers in Llano and Kreuz in Lockhart. Didn't think much of Coopers, but Kreuz was great.

I went to Meyer's in Elgin. It was decent - the brisket was great, the potato salad was good, the mac and cheese was unexceptional but about like I expected. I had planned to go to Louie Mueller but I couldn't find it, I was behind schedule, and hungry. I had driven by Meyers a million times in a car so I knew where it was an headed over there.


Tomorrow I am going to the Easter Hill Country Tour - 3 days of riding in the hill country of texas. Planning to ride around 160-170 miles total over the 3 day weekend. My left knee feels a little tweaked which is hilarious because I haven't ridden at all in 4 days. Taking some alleve, applying ice, hoping it doesn't become a problem. There are a few ridiculous hills in my near future.


I'm driving up there and sharing a room with a woman I really don't even know. I posted on facebook/meetup that I had a spare room and this woman responded. I thought it was kinda weird but it doesn't bother my wife and it doesn't bother this woman so I guess I'm just old fashioned. (My wife basically said "Are you going to try to bang her? No? Then I don't care if you share a room with her". I suspect that her actual feelings run more along the lines of her belief that I have no ability to seduce anyone)

I've been following your log as it is one of the few cycling logs here and I'm quite jealous as you are doing a lot of things I want to do, such as putting in a lot of seat time and getting to ride multi day tours. Hopefully my personal schedule will be clearing soon and I can start putting in some miles. Good luck and hope your knee isn't an issue. I have a bad knee as well and cycling has actually made it a lot better over the long run. Not to say you can't have a short term issue.

As far as sharing a room with another woman, she could be totally hideous and it wouldn't fly with my wife.

I had my knee checked out by an orthopedic surgeon, he assured me cycling won't damage it, and for now I believe him. It basically comes down to whether it's uncomfortable enough to skip riding. I have a wrist that's the same way. Sucks to get old I guess.

Yeah either she really trusts me, or she's familiar enough with my game (and lack therof) to feel safe.

Well, I just went to Mueller's website to figure out why I couldn't find it. When I googled places in elgin, it popped up, with an address of "2nd st and main". Turns out this is in Tyler, not Elgin (they're maybe 15-20 miles apart I guess). That explains why it wasn't there when I went to 2nd and Main in Elgin.

First day of Easter Hill Country Tour complete. I did the 50 mile ride (it turned out to be more like 48). Piece of cake. I did a very similar ride last year and it beat the **** out of me.

http://app.strava.com/activities/46362163
48 miles, 15.6 mph, 200 watts avg

Got my heart rate up to 181 - there were 2 hills at about 10% grade, one that I think was probably more like 15%. Tons of people walking it, I just held on through the whole thing.

Passed a lot of people, never got passed, so I think I'm OK with my avg speed - although possibly all the fast people got ahead of me early and I never saw them again.

Planning to do the 102 mile ride tomorrow unless I chicken out and do 65. They made an interesting choice this year. Usually the 100 mile loop contains much of the 65 mile look also - at some point they split off and you have to decide. This year, they split IMMEDIATELY. If you want to bail out from the 102 you have to do the 50-ish mile ride instead. So I am going to hold on and try to do the whole thing, I'll be upset if I end up doing only 50 miles tomorrow.

Turns out, riding 102 miles in the hill country of texas is hard. It started out wet and drizzling. I delayed my start by about 90 minutes hoping it would quit but it didn't so I started anyway. I had basically no rain gear but I just put another layer on that I could shed later once it got soaked. Slowly it turned to Hot - from about 55-60 when we started to a high of 88. Wind moderate although quite bad at the tops of hills.

Around mile 85 I wanted to lay down and die. The bottoms of my feet hurt. My neck and back hurt. My ass hurt. My knee hurt. I started overheating and had to slow way down.

But anyway, I did it. Longest ride I ever did with some pretty challenging terrain, strava says 4800 feet of climbing, the other one I checked says 5200. I think I probably started too strong/fast and that caused me to fade earlier than I should have. I did a pretty good pace to start and then it got worse and worse. I hit the lap button at every rest stop, they ranged from 12-15 miles apart, and my lap speeds were like
15, 16, 17, 15, 13, 13, 14 (the last one trended up because it became downhill into town and then flat)

Time: 6:52
Distance: 102 mi
Avg Power: 170 (200)
Avg HR: 140
Avg Speed: 15 mph

Oh and strava rates the "suffer score" for this ride as "epic". Nice.

Good work on getting it done, sounds like you had fun on the big one! What're your feelings on the TDR now that you've got a 100-mile under your belt?

In order of tastiness

krueze
mueller (taylor, not tyler)
southside (because it's next to meyers)
meyers

Yeah, there's a lot more good ones, but just mentioned the ones itt.

krueze is really the best I've ever had.

also, rusty confirmed animal

Final day of the hill country tour. Had planned on a pretty laid back ride but ended up starting the ride with a pretty good match for myself and we pushed each other pretty good. This guy is kind of a "gandalf" (You shall not pass) and so when a pretty fast couple passed us he grabbed onto their tail and we did the pace line thing for 5 miles or so, pretty fast. Then we came into a town and the line sort of breaks up like they do. I actually really like being in a pace line with people who know what they're doing. Feels totally pro.

Time: 2:26
Distance: 41 mi
Avg Power: 166 (200)
Avg HR: 146
Avg Speed: 16.8 mph

Total of 190 miles for the weekend. Feeling fine although a little raw in the crotch region. MS150 is in a few weeks, Tour du Rouge is in 5 weeks. I think it's totally doable. The 100 miles from yesterday is way tougher terrain than the TDR which is completely flat. The main problem on the TDR is wind - there is sometimes a brutal crosswind from the coast and there will be some sections of headwind too. Weather can be anywhere from cold and rainy to pretty hot.

The minimum average speed for TDR is 15 mph - they pick you up if you go slower. I did 15 mph on the 100 miler yesterday through pretty hilly terrain so I think no problem there.

I found out yesterday that I don't know how to pace myself for 100 miles. I had the power meter so my plan was to pick a doable average power and try to stick with that. I did but it was way too much. I started trying to average 180, then 170, then 160 and so forth, the last segments were averaging 140 I think. If I'd started easier it would probably have been a much easier ride overall but I was worried about the stops closing (which they started to, toward the end)

So last week's recommended TDR volume was 150 miles, down from 250. This next week is 100 miles. Score! After that it's a few weeks of 250/week again though. Total mileage for the month was around 890 miles, way more than my previous max of about 550, which beat my previous max by 380 or something like that. Crazy.

Right, Taylor not Tyler, sorry. I don't know where Krueze is, I'll look it up. Sadly, I don't eat pork any more so barbeque is a ghost of it's former self to me, but I still love some brisket.

Man, there were people doing what I did, with a ****ing smile on their face the whole time. For a while I rode with a small group that included a guy a bit older than me and his 60+ mom. The guy wanted to quit SO BAD, I could tell, he was hurting, but how can you quit when your mom is still going strong? He sucked it up and finished it. Plenty of people just had no trouble with it at all. Me next year, I hope.

Lockhart. The family had a split a few years back and now there is Smittys as well as Krueze. One is run by the brother and one by the sister, can't remember which is which. Krueze is one of the original German meat markets that figured out smoking brisket was a good use of a cheap cut of meat back in the 50's.

Hm, Lockhart is 45 miles from my house by bike, could make for a good BBQ century. Leave at like 9am, probably get there around noon, eat, get home by 5.

Only just reading this properly cos been off 'work' this week so hardly been on the comp. Looks like a pretty intense weekend, sounds like fun riding. Is that the first time you've done 100 miles in one ride?

Yeah, my previous max was probably around 89. I had planned on doing the 100 mile ride at this same event last year on day 2, but after day 1 it was clear that was going to be completely impossible - last year the day 1 ride, which was probably under 50 miles, kicked my ass hard. I was very happy with last weekend over all. Probably more miles than I've ever done in a 3 day period, good pace, I got through it all without TOO much trouble.

I'm going to put in a few more centuries before the TDR - I'll be doing the long first day option for the MS150 which is right at 100 miles. It'll either be easy or hard depending on weather. Last year was a brutal headwind, year before was a glorious tailwind. Prevailing winds are from the coast so *usually* it's a tailwind of some kind. However, tailwind also means warmer weather so it's a bit of a mixed bag.

Anyway I sailed through the MS150 no sweat last year so I'm not expecting a problem with it this year. Picking up my packet today. Last year I visited abut 75% of the rest stops, this year I'll probably try to keep it under 50%. MS150 rest stops are every 12-15 miles, TDR are 20-25, it'll be good for me to get used to continuous pedaling for stretches longer than an hour.

An irony that this log is revealing is that my original goal was to get faster by riding shorter distances. My logic at the time was that I spent too much time doing long-distance rides, which was true, and little effort at getting faster, which was also true.

The irony is that I used to think I did pretty high volumes during the riding seasons, which is laughable now, when every weekend I am riding as many miles as I used to ride in the whole week.

I can't sustain 15 hours weeks every week but I am definitely going to try in the coming year to both spend more hours on the bike than I did last year, and ALSO more hours on interval work than I did in years past.

I haven't sat down to figure out what next years schedule will be like. Most people start training seriously in late winter and ride through the summer. I've typically started in the fall and rode through the winter, stopping in the summer. If I ever want to race (I still don't know) I'll have to do that also.