Day 45 - Austin to Blanco

Friday. April 30.

We left Austin after a return trip to Mello Johnny's and an extended trip to the Whole Foods Flagship store. Huge and awesome. It had so much amazing food and we were quite sad that we couldn't fill an entire shopping cart with food (well we could, but putting it on the bike would be tough).

We then tried to find a relatively safe exit from Austin. It would have been much easier if we simply followed the Adventure cycling map, but I lost that several days ago. The in-town roads were fair, but eventually we ended up on highway 290 and it was threatening to rain.

Ugh.

This highway had very little shoulder and lots of traffic as we left town. It was another very high stress riding environment. Luckily for us (not luckily for the drivers involved) there was an accident up ahead of us at the most difficult part of the road. Traffic was at a stop and we were able to continue riding along the small shoulder and continue by the accident. The traffic flow after the accident was much reduced and within a few miles, the shoulder widened up to 8 feet, much better.

We also got a shock when we found the "Gateway to the Hill Country"

We thought we had been there for a while... I guess we are in for a treat later on.

Another few miles down this highway, we were able to make a left turn onto a Farm to Market Road. These have far less traffic and are much more enjoyable to ride. We are able to pay attention to the scenery (like the Texas wildflowers) instead of worrying about getting buzzed by cars.


Welcome to the hill country.


We reached the town of Blanco, and our friend Todd told us that the Blanco brewery (Real Ale) does tours on Friday afternoons. Jackpot! The tour was pretty cool, and the beer was very refreshing.

In the evening, we met up with Todd and his son, Atticus for a night of camping. Yet again, another good day on the road.

Day 45 - 53.82 Miles
Trip to Date - 2429.60 miles
Coast to Coast - 1427.15 miles

Day 44 - Buescher State Park to Austin

Thursday. April 29.

Since we got into camp so late the night before, the office was closed and we didn't pay for camping. To prevent getting caught in the AM, we made sure to be riding bicycles early.

We started riding a little before 7am, and were greeted by some proper Texas hills. A few baby hills had introduced us to the hill country the day before, but wasn't nearly enough of a warm-up for this.

This was a 10 mile stretch of road between two state parks. Buescher State Park and Bastrop State Park. None of the hills were very big, but the riding was a constant up and down and up and down.

It also kept us out of the wind, which was nice.

After reaching Bastrop, we found a Starbucks to check in with civilization. Using the crazy power of Facebook, I searched for a place to stay on short notice. There were several Warmshowers hosts and Couchsurfing hosts, but I'd prefer to give them at least a full day notice. Within minutes, several friends were contacting people to help us out. It was amazing. A friend from architecture school, Mike, was able to set us up with an employee at his firm (he works in the STL office, but was able to talk with the Austin office).

All of this was happening while we were riding to Austin, so when we got into town, it was a pleasant surprise to have things falling into place. Thanks to everyone who helped, and sorry we couldn't stay with everyone!

We cruised Austin, and checked out Lance Armstrong's bike shop, Mello Johnny's. We were told it is a super cool shop and really catered to commuters (and we assumed touring cyclists). While it did have showers (for only $1!), it was most certainly a hipster/high end shop full of $4000 fixies.

Later in the afternoon, we rode over to the office of The Lawrence Group, where our host Paula works.

We were also lucky enough to tag along to a print shop open house happy hour. It seemed like an awesome print shop (Dynamic Reprographics), and they were celebrating moving to a new space with food, beer, and music. Funny how we continue to stumble into such fun events!

After the happy hour, Paula had a date with the gym to get her ready for the San Diego Marathon (hopefully she got in by lottery after the Nashville race was stopped due to weather), so we found a Mexican restaurant and ate chips and salsa while she worked hard. Then, we returned to her apartment, talked running and architecture and Kansas City for a little while and finally went to bed.

Huge thanks to Paula for hosting us, and to Mike for getting it set up.

Day 44 - 52.36 Miles
Trip to Date - 2375.78 miles
Coast to Coast - 1373.33 miles

Day 43 - Glen Flora to Buescher State Park

Wednesday. April 28.

Roy treated us to a giant breakfast in the morning. Real oatmeal with honey and pecans, farm fresh eggs with mushrooms and red peppers, and toast coated with home made fig preserves. Once again, awesome.

We also found out that Roy had changed his schedule and was going to ride with us in the morning. He was going to show us the back roads so we didn't have to ride along on the bigger highway, fantastic. We've spent plenty of time on bigger highways and any time we can get off them is more than welcomed.

However, Roy was still on his zippy little road bike, and we were still on our loaded touring bikes. We had a slight tail wind, and enjoyed the good weather and a riding companion.


To save some energy, we dropped in behind Roy and caught his draft for miles and miles. He blazed along at 20-21mph and we hustled to keep up. After about an hour, we cried 'uncle' and Roy backed off to a speed that was much more comfortable for us.

Fifty-five or so miles into the day, we reached Fayetteville which was to be the end of Roy's ride with us. Gail drove up to retrieve Roy, we went through another round of good-byes and thank yous, and set off alone.

We finally got back onto the Adventure Cycling route, after leaving it many many miles ago. It was only a few miles before we met another rider going the opposite direction. His name was Hiro and he's on a trip from San Fransisco to Miami. He's most of the way there! We told him that he was quickly approaching the flat and smooth roads of the southeast and wished him well.



The day ended up being a lot longer than we had anticipated, and eventually we reached Buescher State Park as the sun was setting.


Since today was long, and the forecast for tomorrow is predicting winds of 20-30mph with gusts to 40mph, we are going to take a shorter day and go to Austin, TX.

Happy days on the road.


Day 43 - 99.00 miles
Trip to Date - 2323.42 miles
Coast to Coast - 1320.97 miles

Day 42 - Freeport to Glen Flora

Tuesday. April 27.

After a mostly loud and chaotic night at the carnival (hip-hop music blaring at 11pm, country music blaring at 2am), we woke up with the sun and got on the road pretty early.

My legs were still quite sore, but much better than the day before. As a result, I took advantage of Jake's riding and rode on his wheel to catch the draft most of the way.

We were scheduled to stay with a warmshower host tonight, so that was exciting. Our host, Roy, even talked about riding out to meet us and riding back to his house. I had talked on the phone with him, and he just said he'd try to meet us, we didn't know where or when or how.

As we continued down the road, a guy on a bike caught up behind us and we were pleased to find it was Roy. He was on a speedy little road bike, and was riding very, very casually to keep up with us. We chatted for the next two hours as we rode into his town and to his house.

His house is amazing, and full of cool stuff. Roy and Gail have a cow, a miniature donkey named Romeo, a bunch of chickens, a garden full of good veggies, fig trees, and pecan trees.







After Gail got home, she treated us to a fantastic blueberry smoothie, and then made an amazing dinner.

We had an appetizer of hardboiled eggs straight from the chickens outside, and carrots dug from the ground minutes earlier.
Freshly made guacamole, bean soup, freshly made jalapeño cornbread, and Shiner Bock left us completely full and happy after another great day of riding.

We sat on the front porch, watching the sun go down and trading stories of life adventures. With the departure of the sun, our energy levels dwindled and we went to bed early, in sunshine dried sheets no less! Huge thanks to Roy and Gail.



Day 42 - 68.44 Miles
Trip to Date - 2224.42 miles
Coast to Coast - 1221.97 miles

Day 41 - Galveston to Freeport

Monday. April 26.

Today can be summed up in one word. Ouch.

Sunday evening, I spent many hours resting and relaxing after the Half Ironman. No matter, when Monday morning came, I was stiff and sore (not surprising). I felt good enough to continue on the cross country journey so we began around the middle of the day.

In anticipation of my post-race discomfort, we only hoped to cover ~40 miles today. Of course, all of these miles were into the wind.


My legs felt like bricks, so my riding was slow and my breaks were often.

It was quite funny that my speed on Monday was almost half my speed on Sunday. We rode down the same road, and crossed the same bridge. Of course, I didn't get the chance to stop and take a picture yesterday.



We pulled into a town called Freeport later in the afternoon. We stopped for dinner at a Subway. It was a surreal experience, and probably the slowest service I've ever received at a 'fast food' restaurant. I still can't tell if it was the employees or the 4 people ordering in front of us. Probably a little of both.



The campsite we were planning to stay at was another 6 or 7 miles away, but within a mile of riding, we passed a former carnival. They had a number of RV's and tents set up, and the rides and games were packed up next to them. We pulled in and asked if we could set up camp next to them.

They said sure, and we chatted about the carnival a bit. They travel each week to a new town, and set up on Tuesday/Wednesday. The carnival will be active for Thursday to Sunday, and then they pack up on Monday. Nice people. The carnival life seems interesting, that's for sure.





Day 41 - 44.25 Miles
Trip to Date - 2155.98 miles (Half IM Bike included)
Coast to Coast - 1153.53 miles (Half IM Bike excluded)

Day 40 - Half Ironman in Galveston

Sunday.


Official Recap.

Much like most race days, I was able to wake up easily. The anticipation generally keeps me from sleeping too soundly.

After a quick check of my race day stuff, we hopped in the car to pick up Danny. Listening to the proper song before a race is key. Some people like crazy excited music, and others like mellow 'calm the nerves' music. I'm somewhere in between. I don't like angry high paced rock music. Many people will refer to this as 'good running music'. My primary choice for race day music is Sigur Ros. Specifically, the first two tracks of "með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust" (second track). I don't know why, but this just sits well in my brain. It's somehow upbeat and calming at the same time for me.
However, in a lack of pre-race preparation, my iPod was still on my other bike back in the hotel room. Danny's iPod was in the car, so a quick listen to "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" did the trick. Jess went back to the hotel for breakfast and we entered the transition after getting body marked.

In pre-race transition, things went pretty smoothly. Add air to the tires, lay out necessary items (shoes, shirt, food, water, etc.) I did realize I forgot a throwaway waterbottle, so I put one of my insulated bottles on the bike knowing it would get tossed on the course. So it goes. These things are expensive anyways.

We left our 'morning clothes bag' at the necessary tent and moved towards the swim start. It was chilly, but not too cold. I carried my wetsuit over because mine fits pretty snugly and it's not so comfortable to walk around in.

My nerves before the race were off and on. I hadn't been swimming much at all in the past few months, so I knew there was a chance my arms would burn out quickly and I'd be left floundering in the water. It was a wetsuit legal race and it was also salt water, so floating was easy, but 1.2 miles of swimming is still a long way. Jess caught back up to us, took a few pictures and then Danny and I made our way down the dock to the start.


Danny started one wave (5 minutes) ahead of me, so I didn't expect to see him for much of the day. We are usually pretty similar racers, although given my recent bike journey I'd probably have an edge on the bike and he'd have an edge on the run.

It was finally time for my wave to hop off the dock and into the water, and soon enough we were on our way. Swimming was not easy, but at least I was breathing smoothly.... until I caught an elbow in the chin just a few minutes into the swim. Ouch, that really hurt! No worries, the faster swimmers were out of my way soon enough, and I was able to fall into a rhythm. Later in the swim, fast people from the waves behind me started to catch me, but that was only slightly demoralizing, not necessarily difficult. I exited the swim feeling pretty OK.

The short run up the hill to the bike transition was pleasing because there were still a fair number of bicycles on the rack. After putting on my jersey, helmet, glasses and shoes, I ran to the exit and hopped on my bike. The time showed 1:07:00, so my time for the swim and transition was ~47 minutes (I started 20 minutes after the pros). Not great, but not terrible.

The bike. Oh, the bike! All I can really say is 'wow'. After riding 2000 miles on a loaded cyclocross bike, a carbon framed triathlon bike felt like cheating. Expectations on the bike were varied. It was tough to judge how well the switch would go because in the past 2 months I had only ridden this bike for 20 minutes (the day before). Luckily, it felt great. I was able to cruise along the coast and started passing people. Quite a few people, actually. It seemed like we had a slight headwind going down the coast, so I was excited about reaching the turn around and 'coasting' on the return trip. It also motivated me to stay in the aero position as much as possible on the way out.

Going the other way, the pro athletes started appearing when I was at mile 16 or so. Wow, between swimming and half of the bike, they were over 20 miles ahead of me. Crazyness. I also started to watch for Danny, hoping I'd be able to catch him before the end of the bike. As I got closer and closer to the turn around point, I started to worry if I had missed Danny. Then, within a half mile of the turn around I saw him. Exciting! Within a few miles on the return ride, I passed Danny and told him he was looking good. I knew if I was going to beat him, I had to get ahead of him on the bike. He has been running a lot this spring, and running strong. The tailwind I had hoped for on the return leg wasn't terribly strong so my speed increased a little, but not too much. The miles continued to tick by and I was amazed at how my quads were still feeling good. My back was starting to get sore because of the different position, but nothing terrible. As a result, I started sitting up more, but was still making OK time.


I broke 3 hours on the bike, and began on the run just as the race clock was reaching 4:00:00 (3hours 40 minutes for me). The run was the wild card in my day. While I haven't been doing much running, I have been physically active every day for the past 1.5 months. I realized that I could run as slow as 2:20 for my half marathon and still break 6 hours for the race. Not bad!

The run began well, I found a rhythm that felt very comfortable. There were two other guys right ahead of me who were running about the same pace, so I settled in behind them. Mile 1 buzzed on my watch. 8:18! Oh boy. That's a bunch faster than I anticipated, and is a good way to set up a crash and burn finish. For whatever reason, I thought it would be a good idea to continue at this pace for as long as possible. My brain kept running numbers in my head... "if I put in 3 miles at 8:30, I can do three miles at 9:30 to finish under 2 hours on the run" and so on. Mile two clicked by at about the same speed. I was feeling good! Each time I reached a new mile, I just mentally prepared to try and do the next mile at a similar speed.

The rest of my time was occupied with the heat. It was a pretty hot day, certainly in the high 80's maybe even in the low 90's. At every single aid station I would grab two sponges soaked in icewater and place them on my shoulders. I'd also grab anything and everything to drink and eat. Water, check. Gatorade, check. Hot cola, check. Oranges, check. Cookies, awesome!

Soon enough, I had reached mile 8 and was still moving along at a decent clip. I just kept waiting for my legs to self destruct. The pain was beginning to build, but nothing terrible just yet.

At mile 9 I saw Jess, Jake, and Taras, there to cheer me on. It was very motivating and exciting. I only had 4.1 miles to go. By the time I reached mile 10, my legs were really starting to burn. "It's only a 5k you sissy" rang in my brain again and again. Luckily, at this point it was clear I could finish under 6 hours. My pace slowed a little, but I was able to continue running and only walked at the last few aid stations.

When I came around the final stretch, I felt awesome. I was running well under 2 hours on the half marathon, and after my decent swim and pretty good bike, I was going to crush the 6 hour mark!

Good deal. I raced much better than I expected and finished in respectable style to boot.
Time to eat some pizza and get out of the sun. (notice the gross amounts of salt on my legs)


I finished 379th overall out of 1337 total finshers.
I was 37th out of 94 in my age group M25-29 (This was my first triathlon finishing about half way in my age group)

Big congrats to Danny too. He had an ugly battle with hydration/electrolytes but still finished with a personal best.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Original post.

Half Ironman went well.
I finished in 5 hours 36 minutes, much faster than I expected.
I'm exhausted. A proper report will be added later.

For now, here are links to the GPS data of my bike and run.

Day 39 - Rest Day in Galveston

Saturday.

Jess, Danny, and Taras arrived at 3am Saturday morning. We all got up around 9am, and went over to the Half Ironman race expo.
We watched some of the Sprint and Olympic triathlons, then Danny picked up his race packet.
After the mandatory race meeting, Danny and I did a little swimming, and then biked for about 30 minutes. I hadn't been swimming in my wetsuit in a long time, and I hadn't been riding on my triathlon bike in several months, so I wanted to make sure things felt mostly OK before race day.

We at a big Italian dinner at Mario's, and then settled into bed early. Getting up at 4:30am for a race never seems easy.

Day 38 - Rest Day in Galveston

Friday.

Not much happening today. I got up, ate a big breakfast, did my laundry and spent some time on the computer. Watched people riding race bikes up and down Seawall Drive in preparation for the weekend racing. I decided I was glad I wasn't on a bike.

My body isn't sure what is going on. I think it forgot what a rest day feels like.

Jake rode the last 30 miles into Galveston and arrived in the early afternoon.

We walked over to the race expo, and I picked up my packet for the Half Ironman on Sunday.

After another Cici's Pizza Buffet dinner, it's time for a casual evening at the hotel.

Jess, Danny, and Taras are on the way down, and should arrive in Galveston in the morning.

No pictures, I'm sure I'll take some tomorrow.

Day 37 - Orange to Galveston

Thursday.

Whew, what a day!

After thirteen days of nearly perfect weather, we finally got a tough weather day. Today we were to point the wheels south, ride to the coast, then along the coast to Galveston. A stiff south wind met us from the very beginning of the day.

We also encountered a few bridges. The first major bridge was in Bridge City (clever Texans). Even from far away it looked intimidating, and as I got closer I realized that this bridge didn't have a shoulder.

Look closely, Jake is the tiny dot about half way up.

Somehow, I got lucky and practically had a police escort over this bridge. A cruiser stopped behind the pickup in the above picture to make sure everything was OK. As I rode by, I joked with the officer, "man that's a tall one". During the early parts of the climb, the traffic was almost all in the left lane, presumably because of the officer at the base of the bridge. When I got higher on the bridge, more and more cars were passing me in my lane. After I crested the top and began my descent, the right lane traffic disappeared again. The nice cop had cruised down behind me with his lights on, and passed me right at the bottom of the bridge.

Then, the day got tough. We passed a monster refinery and joined onto highway 73.

Shortly after this, we passed a sign saying "Road Construction 20 Miles" and began riding on a miserably bumpy road. Every joint in my body was screaming as I rolled along at 12 mph. Luckily, this only lasted 6 or 7 of the 20 miles. The road improved, but riding continued to be slow.

We reached the turn to officially head to Galveston, and stopped for lunch after 50 miles.


The next 20 miles were dead into the wind, with absolutely nothing to block it. All we could do is find a small gear, and ride as comfortably as we could. No point in fighting it. For me, this speed was about 9-10 mph. Jake was a little slower, and fell behind.
Wind is sometimes difficult to capture in a picture.

I crossed over the intracoastal waterway, and finally reached the coast again.


After waiting at a gas station for a little while, I decided to press on, knowing that there was only one road to Galveston and Jake would get there eventually. About 10 miles down the road, Jake sent a message letting me know that his knee was sore and his legs were shot so he got a campground. I should have waited for Jake, but at this point, I didn't really want to backtrack. He rode super strong for 14 days, and was right by my side for all of it. The fact that he could do all with almost no warm up (I had been riding in Florida for 3 weeks) is proof of how tough he is.


Anyways, I rode on to the end of the Bolivar peninsula and took the ferry to Galveston.




Finally in Galveston, it was almost dark and the winds had picked up even more. I checked into a hotel, and began resting.


Friday to rest, Saturday to rest. Race on Sunday.
What a fantastic 1100 miles in 14 days.


Day 37 - 103.18 Miles
Trip to Date - 2055.73 miles
Coast to Coast - 1109.28 miles

Day 36 - Ragley to Orange, TX

Wednesday.

Jake got an early start in the morning because he needed to get his rear wheel situation fixed. The nearest bicycle shop was in Lake Charles, about 20 miles to the south. Unfortnuately, the only major roads heading west out of the town are Interstates. It is not legal to ride a bicycle on these highways. This resulted in a lot of backtracking and extra miles for Jake.

He offered to leave early and eventually he'd catch up with me. The offer was much appreciated as my Half Ironman race is only 4 days away.

I took my time packing up and leaving Juddie Clair's, and finally hit the road.



A long, casual stop in DeQunicy let me eat lunch and check up on the internet.

I found out that our Couchsurfing host for the evening couldn't host us due to a family emergency. It was a bummer, but luckily after talking with our potential host I found out that everything was going to be OK. So, I jumped online and found a few other people who could potentially host us for the evening.

I began riding again, and soon enough passed into Texas. Wow! Texas. When I started this trip, it seemed like Texas was a world away.




My initial exposure to Texas roads was great. Texas roads came with Texas sized shoulders. It was wider than the lane for many miles. I could get used to this.


During my ride, I got a call from one of the couchsurfing hosts and they were able to host us on super short notice. They live in Orange, Texas, which is about 20 miles shorter than we had planned for the day, but it was still awesome to have a host. Jake met me at the Texas border with a brand new set of wheels. Hopefully, the rear tire issues are behind us.

We arrived in Orange, got some snacks and drinks at a grocery store, and then rode to meet our hosts for the evening. Our hosts were Allison and Jayne, two awesome girls who work at the Shangri La Gardens in Orange. When we arrived, they had a great dinner ready, and then they took us to a "Pickin' and Grinnin'" bluegrass event in Louisiana. It was out at a campground and with people just sitting around playing songs, enjoying the day. We listened to music, played on the playground like kids, then went back to the apartment to eat some pizza and drink some beer. (Allison and Jayne, if you happen to read this can you email some of the photos?) Thanks so much girls!

Tomorrow is going to be a long day, about 100 miles to Galveston.

Day 36 - 55.37 Miles
Trip to Date - 1952.55 miles
Coast to Coast - 1006.10 miles

Day 35 - Opelousas to Ragley

Tuesday.

Today was an almost super smooth day of riding.
I started the day with the breakfast of champions, a can of Dinty Moore beef stew.

We left the city park of Opelousas, and our day was broken up into three ~25 mile sections.

As we entered a town named Elton, the first sign of Texas appeared.

Texas was less than 100 miles away. Sure, in a car that's only an hour and a half, but by bicycle it means we could be in Texas tomorrow. Exciting stuff.

Otherwise, I didn't take many pictures today, but when we were stopped by a train, I snapped a few.




Our destination for the evening was the Juddie Claire RV campground, just outside of Ragley, LA. When I had spoken to the lady on the phone, she informed me that it would be two dollars to camp. Two dollars! As we pulled into the campground, the lady and her husband called us up to their porch, offered us a glass of water, and told us that they weren't going to charge us to camp at all. Such great people.

I'm terrible with names, and can't remember either one, but the husband is 86, and the wife 67. They have been married for 40 years, and built the house and campground to host family reunions. It then turned into a proper RV campground, and more recently had FEMA trailers for 3 years after Katrina.

We unloaded our bikes, set up our tents, and set off to ride the two miles into town for dinner. Sure enough, 'ping'! Jake had broken another spoke. We were so close to a day free of mechanical problems. Oh well, I guess that is part of touring. Dealing with the issues that come up.

Day 35 - 70.24 Miles
Trip to Date - 1897.18 miles
Coast to Coast - 950.73 miles

Day 34 - Gonzales to Opelousas

Monday.

After a refreshing night sleep at the Best Western, we were back on the road again. This is our 11th consecutive day of riding.

We rode into Baton Rouge, home of LSU, and found a bike shop directly on our route.

These guys were super nice, and I purchased a new tire to replace the tire which had been gashed the day before. They had Specialized Armadillo Elites there, so I got one of those. I would have preferred the Original Armadillo (for both price and toughness), but sometimes you have to take what you can get. Jake purchased a brand new rack, so we didn't have to wait for his temporary fix to eventually fail.

After passing through downtown Baton Rouge and the capitol building, we came upon the bridge to cross the Mississippi.


This bridge was a little scary. OK, a lot scary. Two lanes of highway traffic with no shoulder. Luckily, the traffic was light enough that almost every single car got into the left lane for us. The second challenge of this bridge was the gigantic expansion joints. They could have easily swallowed our tires and dumped us onto the road. It's amazing that neither of us wrecked. However, once we were over the bridge, it became apparent that one of the expansion joint bumps had put yet another flat tire into Jake's back wheel. (see scary bridge in background)


Perhaps 10 miles down the road, Jake was the victim of another rear wheel flat tire. I took the time to be a joker.



From that point on, we had a very smooth ride into a town called Opelousas. They permit camping in the city park, so we got dinner at a grocery store and headed down to set up camp. A bunch of guys were hanging out at one of the pavilions playing a bunch of Zydeco music, a pretty cool end to a good day. 88 Miles felt pretty easy today, which was possible with yet another fantastic weather day.


Day 34 - 88.41 Miles
Trip to Date - 1826.94 miles
Coast to Coast - 880.49 miles