Tour de Poway

Did the metric century yesterday, Tour de Poway. Pretty good ride 4000' of climbing, 62 miles. It's a lot of terrain that I have been riding on a regular basis in the last month preparing for it. A couple guys from my regular ride group got together for the ride. It was great fun. Here's my observations on my performance over the last few months.

I haven't lost any more weight, still hovering between 188-192. My fitness has gotten much better on the bike. I seem to have more strength on the hills than all of the guys I ride with on a regular basis. It atleast appears to be so, maybe they are slacking off or something. I just visualize these guys behind me at the bottom of the hill and by the time I get to the top, they are gone. I sit up and soft pedal to wait for them. I don't do this on every hill, but can on most when I want. You have to remember that these are guys that I couldn't keep up with about 4-5 months ago. I'm still making progress every week, just from riding more than I used to. I am averaging 150 miles per week. It's actually pretty hard to do that much mileage when you figure in my work schedule and one or two mountain bike rides per week. I would say that one mtb ride per week is all I've been doing the last few weeks.

Anyway, point being, I'm not going to change much of what I'm doing for training until I really plateau. My goals are still something epic, but I have come to realize, just as we are all taught at some point, to make realistic goals. At this point, weekly rides and preparing for a century are where I'm focusing my energy. I would like to do a century in 5 hours with a good group of guys. I figure it is very feasible. 20mph for 5 hours is very realistic with a good group.

Should have a couple good pics from the Tour de Poway in the next week or so. Meanwhile, here's a pic Inna, myself and the new ride.