Pico de Gallo 100 we meet again...

How time flies....wasn't it just yesterday that we were riding out from sun up to sun down from a cold morning to a hot afternoon.  Well it's that time again. This year it seems like it is gonna be a wet, slippery, cold, ugly day....perfect weather to ride with 50+ other cyclist in a group.....  We will see how it is tomorrow... I hope for a smooth, accident free ride.  Been "trying" to diet all week "trying" to reduce my calorie intake, not a good way to carb up for a tough 100 mile ride.  Legs don't fail me....better yet, body don't fail me!  

Billy Blogger: Helping a friend(s) finish out training strong!!!

Billy Blogger: Helping a friend(s) finish out training strong!!!: "Today I started my day at 4:00a.m.To ride with 3 awesome athletes Tom, Eric, and surge. I Got ready, put my bike in the back of my truck an..."

Jalapeño 100 done...

Wind. Heat. Lots of work. 100 miles done.

 The day started off real nice, not like last year where it was wet and muggy.  Last year my truck got stuck in the mud as we were parking in the field.  This year it was nice and dry, the wind was already blowing but not that bad.  I knew that as the day went by, the wind will get a bit tougher.

Everyone was ready at the starting line. Waiting to do 100 miles. Waiting to take on hours of wind, sun, and more wind.  What are we thinking? lol  Well off we went, I had decided to go with the fast group with Sergio before the ride and we took off.  I was in a group with lots of Wally's Group riders so I just stayed in the group not noticing that Sergio had left with a group that was in front.  By the time I saw that he was not there I saw that they were a good distance away so I said to myself maybe we will speed up a bit and catch them later one.  That was not the case, we took an easy pace and cruised along. I was not disappointed because I would rather take a nice 100 than a 100 where I would be dead at end lol...  Slowly the large group I was in started to break apart leaving only the stronger riders.  Me and a couple of cycling buddies, Karen and Lauren, had to push hard to catch the faster group ourselves because we were the only ones left.  These are some strong girls pulling at 23 against the wind is some speed that some guys can't even do.  I managed to help them out doing my fair share of pulling to catch up to a bigger group where we could rest.  Later on we left that group too and took the rest of the way back on our own picking up another Wally rider, Pepe, and Wally himself whom was on mile 145 of his 200 mile journey that day!!!   It took us a good 5 hours and 28 minutes to finish my second Jalapeno 100 which shatters last years time almost in half!!!!  GOOD TIMES!

 Cindy and Justin ready to get riding. They finished their second 100 30 minutes faster than her last time.

 Arlene ready to attempt her first 100.  She did 60 mile which is still an awesome feat.

Adrian finished his first 100 miles!~

100 miles in a couple of hours...

So it has come again... A whole year has passed since I finished my first Jalapeno 100 and tommorrow I do it all agian.  I have done several 100 mile rides but this is the one I first set my goal of accomplishing when I started to lose weight.  I did this one all by myself. That was then and this is now... This year I'm going with a big group,  This year I'm helping my sister finish her first century.  Even Adrian, the 6 ft 3 260 pounder is going to finish this.  They will get to experience something that not that many people can say they have done.  It will be a good day.

My first Century Jalapeno 100 bicycle tour...

With the Jalapeno 100 just around the corner I wanted to post a video of me doing it one year ago.  I have come a long way. At this point I had just started cycling for about 5 months on and off.  I had set the goal of doing the 100 miles when I started dieting.  I was determined to lose the pounds!

Cycling to South Padre Island 10k...

Why not... it's just 70 miles...  That is what we said yesterday, we wanted to make the trip out there because my friend Cindy was going to do a 10k run over the causeway and we always try and support each other in events. Make things more fun to do when you have buddies cheering you on... 

Today we battled a headwind and fog for 70 miles...we did not think about that.  Thats the main problem in the valley, we do not have hills, we do not have winter storms, all we do have is wind and lots of it!  It was a smooth steady paced ride in which I tried to keep over 20 mph for the whole duration. It ended up being a good 20.3 average, a good time considering I was fighting the head wind. Once we got there Billy had enough energy to do the 10k himself so he laced up his running shoes and jumped into the group.  He ran a great time of 52 min even after doing the whole ride and pulling for hours!

Train just appeared out of the fog, it was thick this morning.

A picture of how my ride looked for most of the morning.

I rode my bike along the runners. Here I am drafting in one of Billy's long pulls. 

Cindy did good for not training. Here she is asking for two beers while running, didn't know she was such a drunk! lol

Pico de Gallo 100 mile ride...

100 miles.  100 miles. 100 miles...  Thats a large number that many cyclist prepare the whole year to tackle.  Its a feat that not many cyclist dare to attempt.  Today I went on a 100 mile ride with Cindy Billy and some friends that I have met though my cycling.  It's is such a great feeling completing 100 miles and today I went out there to encourage and make sure my buddies would get it done.  The day was long,  the wind was brutal, the miles never ending but they pushed on and on and on.  Cindy had not ridden a bike in a couple months now so that goes to show how much hurt she was feeling. NEVER GIVE UP... She, Rosalva and the others proved that today.  Excellent job to the new centurions!  Now keep it up so next time we wont have to see the sun go up and come down on one ride. lol...

I ended up with 117.5 miles for the day... All my riding is paying off because that was 7 hrs on the saddle and I still feel I could do 50 more.  AWESOMENESS!

Trip to the canon. Good workout.

I sometimes get bored.... Well good thing I have my bike.  Boredom used to lead to snacking and laying around seeing TV but not anymore!  Got my bike and set a destination.  Wanted to make it to the canon and back before nightfall.  A good 50 mile route. Battled the wind for 25 miles.  Burned lots of calories.  Rides like these are the ones that will help me get to my weight goal.

battling the wind.

helmet felt awesome.

Things you see on the side of the road.

The Canon.  Exactly 25 miles away from my house.

love having the wind on my back flyin'

100 Mile Ride...Why not? TURKEYRIDE100

I love to eat turkey!  For the past thirty years of my life, thanksgiving has been the day where we eat lots and lots of food.  From  ham to mashed potatoes (spell check by Cindy de la Frontera) to pecan pies to carrot cake to rolls to turkey to tamales to food food food.... It is one of the many reasons I got to the point where I was.   BUT NOT THIS YEAR, this year I am a new person.  I have a new passion.  I have a new direction that I want to take my life and in order to feast the days food, I must face the pain of going out there and burn all the calories I may possibly take in!  Well I'm being a little over dramatic but you get the point...lol    

This is the perfect picture to show the mood of this ride. EXHAUSTING!

Like always Sergio has to piss everywhere.

At mile 74 we stopped for a little nutrition. Not good choices but hey we have been on the road for more than 5 hrs.  I decided to not eat anything and just drink some gatorade, bad idea I soon realized a few miles down the road.

Whenever you see salt, thats not a good sign. That means that Eric is getting kinda dehydrated. Remember DRINK LOTS OF WATER.

Hey we needed a good photo op to get our mind off the pain.

The view I had for many miles, trying to see my cadence and speed. Wind is not your enemy, your psycological being is - it can completely make you give up or do the unthinkable.

One last break before we head home. You don't care where you lie down when your tired, here we are on the cement of a dirty gas station lane.  We finished our Turkey day Century, battled the harsh wind the whole way.  NEVER Quit.

The great 85 mile ride... or was it...

Since Sergio and Billy were off for Thanksgiving break we decided to head out on a long ride. We had planned to get a ride out to Raymondville and back, should have been a good 85 mile ride.  I do not know why but whenever you have an awesome planned ride, no matter how prepared you are, something always goes wrong.  We made sure to take extra tubes and CO2 just in case we got flats.

 Well on mile 20, mileage that we usually do all the time, Sergio got his first flat. WHY! Ok it just happened... Fixed his flat and used a CO2 cartridge.  Then once we get ready to put the rim back on  tire we notice that it is flat again....bad tube....   So there we go and put use up another pair.. this time it works.. So off we went.

A few miles later... we look back and we see Serge lying on the street.  Frustrated that he had another flat!! WOW how can that happen. By that time we were around 30 miles out so we used up our last tube. Now we just think he has a bad rim or tire so we decide to just go home since it was our last repair.

 In the end it was a good ride. LOTS of wind and we ended up doing around 60 miles.  It's off-season so we are just getting in some good base miles to build up our endurance.  With all this wind resistance it seems like we are working twice as hard. We are gonna be beast once race season comes around.

Recovery ride...or not

Some of the greatest rides are the ones where you are out there with a cool breeze by yourself in pure silence. Just the sound of you breathing and your bikes chain being spun can be so relaxing. Today I had about 10 miles of me after my training ride.

  

This morning I had planned on a smooth 30 mile recovery ride to loosen up the legs from yesterdays thrashing but when I joined Mike at Starbucks and he, as usual, had his plan to do intervals.  Doing these intervals with Mike has made me so much faster and an overall better rider.  We set off and did 3 intervals of 5 minutes each doing the toughest gear maintaining a constant cadence of 60-65.  This works out your main cycling leg muscles.  After 5 minutes of mashing the pedals it really starts to wear you down.  Doing this you can actually feel what part of the leg needs work because you are constantly flexing and pulling.  Overall this was a great workout and went home feeling accomplished.  My legs are still sore from yesterday but I know that they will recover so much stronger than before. Total miles today was 29.