We had a re-route on the beginning of today’s ride since one of the bridges was flooded, this cut a couple miles off of the route so “only” came in at 96.6 miles today. Was a good ride, however the wind seemed to be always in front of me. One of the riders got hit by a truck, he’s gonna be okay but had to have an ambulance come and take him out. His name is Bill from Oklahoma City if I remember right. (Update on Bill, found out at dinner that they ended up taking him out by helicopter to San Antonio to be worked on. He fractured a vertebrae, otherwise known as breaking your neck. He’ll be okay, but that’s a tough one).

I think I finally got my eating right. Day 1 I ate 1,100 calories during the ride and was starving at the end. Yesterday I bonked at 80 miles and ended up eating 1,300 calories and starving. Today I ate 2,000 calories during the ride and felt much, much stronger during the ride. Think I’m figuring out how to fuel these centuries in a row.

Onto the ride, here’s the map. Todays is more impressive, looks like we went further. The default path was to go to highway 16 and then go up to Frederickburg, but that road has too many cars going too fast, so I backed up and went up 2093 back into town.

Road map showing a cycling route near Fredericksburg Texas with yellow dashed lines marking the path through Kerrville Center Point and Comfort covering roughly 96 miles

The altitude profile wasn’t as bad as yesterday, still had some serious climbing and that climbing was into the wind, adding insult to injury.

Line chart showing altitude profile for a 96.6-mile bike ride on 3/12/2001 from 7:12am to 4:48pm, peaking near 2150ft around 2pm.

Had some nice fast runs today. When we climbed out of the valley had about 10 miles on flats. I can’t tell you how cool it feels when you’re five hours into your ride and you can still hammer out at 25 miles an hour for a good while (of course, the wind at your back, shhh!)

Speed profile line graph for a 96.6-mile ride on 3/12/2001 from 7:12am to 4:48pm, showing speed in MPH ranging 0 to 40.

Average heart rate today was 119, lowest of all three days. Makes sense since we had less vertical climbing. As well, the body just gets tired.

Heart rate graph over 6-plus hours showing values mostly between 100 and 130 bpm in yellow zone, with 29.9 percent in green zone and 0 percent in red or cyan zones.

Tomorrow is Fred’s Ride. Semper Fi! 😊

Part of the Texas Hellweek 2001 collection.