13 days - Pfinally Pflugerville

Pflugerville (the "P" is silent) is a small town just east of Austin. It's straight east from my house about 25 minutes away. This ride was through flat to rolling farmland, and followed my 40 mile ride from yesterday, the Rosedale Ride. My plan was to ride the 47 miler.

Well, plans change. One of my other riding buddies showed up, Sherri, and she was planning to ride the 67 mile ride. So I figured, what the heck! Teammates!

So here's what I learned today - sixty seven miles is a loooong way to ride a bicycle. Especially when the wind is up. To be sure, we were in really pretty farm country, very little traffic for the most part. But with no trees around, the wind could get at you, and it did. When you have a solid 15-20 MPH wind in your face and you are trying to get uphill, well, you learn what you are really capable of doing.

We finished the ride uneventfully in about 6 hours, of which about 4 3/4 hours were spent actually on the bike. By staying together as a group, at a slower pace than I did the day before, I learned to pace my strength better for longer rides. Thanks Sherri! So now I know where to keep my heart rate so I don't burn my muscles out. All the data has been downloaded to the PC so I can see it really clearly.

Still, that doesn't mean I don't ache! I really have sore muscles from head to toe, but no bad things, like strained ligaments, knees or anything. Just basic soreness. That's a good thing.

Oh yeah, one other interesting note about the ride. We were truly in farm country, and the farmers in their trucks were so kind and courteous to us on the road. They never tried to blow past us or be mean. They waited until we acknowledged them and gave them room or signals to pass. That was very, very nice.

So the rest of this week, I will do my recovery rides and make sure I make permanent all the new things I just taught my body to do. By doing 107 miles in one weekend, I think I've made a huge milestone toward doing 150. My confidence is up that I can make the MS 150, but I am still cautious. I've heard the second day of the MS 150 is the one with the hills, so day 1 has to be done with an eye towards reserving strength for the next day.

Now I just have to find a cot to sleep on in the tent overnight in La Grange.

Cheers boys!

P.S. I just checked my web page for my fund raising for the Tour de Cure, I have two donors so far - yippee!!! The Tour de Cure is another 150 mile charity ride from San Antonio to Austin benefitting Diabetes research, four weeks after the MS 150, so I will be counting down to that as well. Gotta find a cure!!!