I encountered the participants of the Ride 2 Recovery Texas Challenge while I was out on a ride last year. I told myself that I’d join the ride this year.

The Challenge started in San Antonio on Monday, and yesterday was the leg from Austin to Ft. Hood. I signed up for the one-day ride, and took the day off from work so that I could participate.

The weather report for Wednesday was for rain, followed by a cold front. It was raining when I got up at 5:30 AM, but it was about 70 degrees outside. I don’t especially like riding in the rain, but I’ll do it if I have to.

When we started the ride at 9:00, it was about 55 degrees and still raining. The cold front had arrived. 55 degrees isn’t bad. 55 and rain is uncomfortable. 55, with rain and wind is miserable. And then the wind picked up and the temperature dropped. By the time we’d been on the road an hour, it was about 40 degrees and the wind was 15 to 20 MPH with higher gusts. I was so cold that I was shivering uncontrollably. I’ve been pretty uncomfortable on the bike before, but that was unbearable. We made a scheduled stop for a bathroom break, and the organizers gave us some extra time to warm up. We were inside where it really was warm, but I was unable to stop shivering. After about 30 minutes, they gave participants the option of continuing with the ride or taking a bus to the finish line. Considering that I couldn’t get warm and the weather hadn’t changed, I elected to cut the ride short. I’ll do a lot for the cause, and goodness knows I like a challenge, but I draw the line at hypothermia.

I can’t think of a time I’ve ever been colder. That was the most miserable bike ride I’ve ever been on, although it did have a few high points. The organizers arranged for us to ride by a number of elementary schools. The kids were all out waving American flags, cheering us on and holding out their hands. We rode by slowly and touched their hands. The kids got a real kick out of it, and many of the veterans I was riding with were touched by the gesture. Nice to see such support from the kids and also from adults who braved the cold and wet, not only near the schools but in many places along the route. We even had people get out of their cars at intersections and cheer us on as we passed.

The weather was beautiful for the Monday and Tuesday legs of the ride, and this morning was a little chilly but would not have been uncomfortable. And the forecast for the next two days is very nice. It just happened that Wednesday, the day I wanted to ride, was an unusual day. Disappointing, but that’s the way it goes. This whole month of April so far has felt more like a typical March. Dang weather, anyway.

Next year will be better, right?

Yesterday was the 9th annual Spokes ‘n Spurs ride, benefiting Spirit Reins Ranch. I’ve participated in this ride for the last seven years as a volunteer, providing event communications with the Williamson County Amateur Radio Club. The ride organizers decided to use a different means of communication this year, so I was free to ride the course.

I chose to ride the 100 kilometer route, and had set an informal goal of finishing in under four hours. I didn’t want to push too hard because I’m a little out of shape. I didn’t ride over the winter, and just started getting serious about it again in March. I figured this would be a good introduction. The weather forecast called for highs around 80, and 10 to 15 MPH winds from the south, increasing to 20 or 25 in the afternoon.  I didn’t figure the wind would be too much of a problem, since the ride is primarily east/west.

Whoever laid out the course must have been a fan of M.C. Escher. Or perhaps they had the spirit of Escher lay out the course. That’s the only way they could have created a circular course that has more uphill than down.

Except they did one better. They also somehow managed a constant headwind.

Joking aside, the wind was bad. It was 15 MPH to start, and the temperature was about 55 degrees. I wore my vest and arm warmers. The vest came off at 23 miles and the arm warmers at about 40. Good thing those cycling jerseys have very large pockets.

I did have a new experience on this ride: I was the leader at the very beginning. When we lined up, I was toward the front, and when we took off I somehow managed to be in the lead. For a bout the first mile. The fast people soon went by me, and I was smart enough not to try keeping up with them. That heart rate monitor is a valuable piece of equipment, provided I pay attention to what it’s telling me.

A rather large group came pedaling by at about six miles, lead by members of the Austin Flyers women’s cycling team. I let them pass, then latched on to the back, figuring I could let them pull me along for a while. That lasted until about mile 13, where we made a turn and started up a hill. Those ladies are strong. They left me and quite a few others gasping for breath as we struggled up the hill.

After that I was pretty much on my own. There were always riders nearby, and I’d chat briefly with those who passed me or whom I’d pass, but I didn’t form a group or get into a group with anybody else.

I stopped at mile 20 or so to refill my water bottles, get a few PB&J sandwiches (the benefits of an organized ride!) and peel off the vest. Then it was off on the worst stretch of the ride. From that rest stop, the course does a 17 mile loop, heading south and west to Burnet, then back to the same rest stop. There’s a lot of open space there with relatively few (compared to the rest of the course) hills, and nothing to block the wind. The wind had picked up and was about 20 MPH by then, with higher gusts. I had to work to keep from being blown over by the direct crosswind. Not fun. But I made it back to the rest stop, now at mile 40.

I’d never ridden the course on a bicycle before, but I was familiar with it from riding in the SAG wagons for several years as a volunteer. I knew that there was a series of hills from about mile 50 to about mile 55, with the first being a very short but steep (10 to 12 percent grade) little monster. I’d been dreading that stretch all day, and every time I saw my heart rate monitor reading above 80%, I’d back it off knowing that I’d need the energy later.

There was another rest stop at about mile 47. Its primary purpose, I think, is to be the midpoint rest for the 42 mile riders. I didn’t stop there, but I did notice that it was placed about 50 yards from the Oatmeal Cemetery. Coincidence?

I was right to be concerned. That first hill was tough. There were several people walking their bikes up it as I approached (riders from the 42 mile route, I think). I geared down and began ascending. When I stood up to put a little more power into the pedals, my left leg nearly locked up. I had to be very careful not to push too hard. Fortunately, the hill is short and I managed to ascend it without blowing a gasket. My heart rate did get to 86% of max, though. From there, there are several long climbs, but not nearly as steep. There’s another rest stop at mile 53 or so, but I had plenty of water and food, and I just wanted to finish the ride.

I finished the route, 60.28 miles, in 4 hours and 10 minutes. That’s an overall average of 14.5 MPH. My moving average was 15.1 MPH. I spent a total of 11 minutes at my two rest stops. It’s not my best time, but I’m okay with that. The wind was brutal, and the course did feature over 3,000 feet of climbing. Contrast that with the Waco Wild West Century, which had only 2,400 feet of climbing in 100 miles.

I’ve been impressed with the ride’s organization since the first year I volunteered for it, and I was still impressed as a participant. These people know how to put on an event. The start/finish area is well laid out, the course is well marked, the rest stops are fully stocked with food, water, and friendly people, and there is plenty of SAG support. It’s a small ride–maximum 1,000 people–but it’s really well done. And everybody I talked to on the road had nothing but good things to say about it.

If you’re an Austin area cyclist, you should seriously consider this ride next year. It’s a well organized ride on some of the most scenic roads in the area. Well worth getting up a little early and driving north to Liberty Hill.

I was critical of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) last month because they were not being fully transparent in their allegations against Lance Armstrong, especially when they stripped him of his Tour de France titles and banned him from competing in cycling events. That changed last week, when the USADA released their report on the investigation.

I have to admit that I haven’t read the entire report in detail. I have, however, skimmed over most of it. I didn’t see a “smoking gun,” but there is a whole lot of evidence presented by a lot of people who rode beside Armstrong for a lot of years. Many of them seemingly have nothing to gain from making their statements, and in several cases stand to lose quite a bit in doing so. It strains belief to think that all those people are lying.

The preponderance of evidence strongly suggests that Lance Armstrong was in violation of the anti-doping rules when he won his seven Tours.

I find that very disappointing.

A popular sentiment is, “Who cares?” Those who hold this belief point out that you would have to go far down the leader board to find a cyclist who has not been found guilty of doping and as a result Armstrong was simply leveling the playing field. This argument is summed up by the ever-so-popular, “Everybody else was doing it.”

That may indeed be the case. It certainly seems that way. And regardless, Armstrong’s seven Tour wins after his battle with testicular cancer is an impressive achievement. But if he really did depend on doping to achieve those wins, his heroic achievement is diminished. If the allegations are true, the Armstrong myth is busted.

There are those of us who want to believe in a hero. Armstrong was that guy: the up-and-coming athlete who suffered a great loss (nearly losing his life to cancer) and came back, stronger than ever, to do something that nobody had ever done. And do it by the book, thumbing his nose at the crooked ways of his competitors. Before Armstrong, it was Rocky. But Rocky was a movie character. Armstrong was the real deal!

Or so I thought. It’s undeniable that Lance Armstrong won those Tours, but now it looks as though he did it by being like everybody else. That shatters the heroic illusion that I and many others had. We continued to deny the possibility as the evidence mounted, watching one disgraced rider after another found guilty of cheating, and pointing out that in all the tests that Armstrong had submitted to, he’d never tested positive for banned substances. Eventually, though, one has to admit that maybe he’s been wrong.

There are those who will take Armstrong to task for misleading people all this time, allowing himself to be held up as an example or as a great hero when in fact he was no different than anybody else. To those I will ask a simple question: In his shoes, what would you have done? If, as it appears, everybody was doing it, then if every cyclist who was accused of doping admitted it, there would have been nobody left to ride the Tour. The only reasonable response by anybody in that situation is to do exactly what most others have done: vigorously proclaim innocence until such time as there is undeniable proof to the contrary.

The fault for Armstrong’s “fall from grace,” at least in my eyes, lies with me rather than with him. I wanted to believe in the heroic, and I maintained that belief much longer than many others. But there is just too much evidence in that USADA report to ignore.

Is Armstrong guilty? I don’t know. Perhaps I never will unless he comes out and admits it. I still think he was the best cyclist of his time. But the “superhuman” myth is busted.

I will, however, continue looking for the heroic. I believe in the heroic in man. I’ve seen it. And I’m willing to be wrong from time to time in my pursuit of it.

This is the event I’ve been training for since April. The goal was to complete the Waco Wild West Century–100 mile bike ride–in less than six hours. I spent about a month and a half re-familiarizing myself with the bike, and in June I began a training program geared specifically to getting me ready for this event. In the process I rode about 2,200 miles, spending about 160 hours on the bike.

The good news is that the training paid off. I completed the ride yesterday. According to my bike computer, I rode 98.6 miles in 5 hours and 42 minutes. That’s an average overall speed (including stops) of 17.3 MPH. Moving time was 5 hours 26 minutes. The other 16 minutes consisted of four stops to refill water bottles.

Along the way I burned about 3,500 calories. I drank 9 quarts of water and consumed about 2,000 calories in energy bars (that I had carried with me) and treats at the water stops. Those peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were good! My average heart rate was 155 beats per minute, or 75% of my maximum heart rate.

Unlike the last time I did the Waco ride, I did everything right this time. I kept my heart rate under control and didn’t let the excitement of the ride push me into over-extending myself. I carried three water bottles and plenty of food, and made a point to eat and drink regularly. I stayed with a group of riders for the first 25 miles, drafting most of the time and taking my turn pulling up front when necessary. I’d push a little harder on the hills, letting my heart rate get to 80%, but no higher. And I’d slack off a little (to about 72%) on the way down. Most importantly, I resisted the urge to catch the person in front of me if it meant exceeding my energy budget.

The ride itself is well organized. The route was well marked and the four rest stops I visited were well stocked, and the people were very friendly and helpful. The water at the 50 mile stop (in Oglesby, TX), though, tasted terrible. I think they used the local tap water. Gah! That stuff was bad!

The course is described as “mostly flat but with some challenging climbs.” There certainly are some challenging climbs, but nothing too terrible. I’ll dispute the “mostly flat,” though. I’d describe the route as typical central Texas rolling hills.

I got in with a pretty large group (20 or more riders) early on, and we worked together for the first 15 miles or so, when the 67-mile route and the 100-mile route split. The group re-formed without the 67 milers, but we dropped quite a few riders between there and the rest stop at 25 miles. Riding with a group makes a huge difference. I finished the first 25 miles in 1 hour and 15 minutes, averaging right at 20 MPH.

There were some memorable characters in that initial group. I didn’t get any of their real names, but I did supply my own names for some.

There was Wobbles, whose body moved from side to side as he pedaled. As he pushed down on a pedal, his torso would move to the side, but his head would stay centered. As he reached the bottom of the pedal stroke, his head would move to align with his torso again, briefly, but then his torso would be moving to the other side as he started the next pedal stroke. Riding behind him made me seasick. He was a strong rider, though. He’d be much stronger if he’d eliminate that unnecessary side-to-side motion.

Weebles wobbled, too, but not as much.

Honey was a slim young woman who was in front of me in the paceline for five miles or so. She had honey blonde hair and very nice legs. When I saw her face at the 25 mile rest stop, I discovered that she also has a beautiful smile.

Red is a thin red-haired woman about my age. She was local, and knew the route very well. She and I left the 25 mile rest stop at the same time, and worked together for a while, until we got to the first climb. Then she rocketed away from me. I probably could have kept up for a while, but when my heart rate got to 80%, I decided to let her go. I didn’t want to expend too much energy early in the ride and burn out. I saw Red several times after that, finally passing her for good at the 80 mile rest stop.

I got stuck behind Big Gear when I first joined up with the group. He was pushing a very big gear, probably running 50 or 60 RPM. Most riders try to run 85 to 95 RPM in a smaller gear because it’s easier on the legs–especially the knees. Pushing the smaller gear also allows you to accelerate more quickly. If the peloton accelerated in front of Big Gear, he couldn’t react as quickly. When he did finally react and catch up, he’d have to brake to keep from overshooting. Riding behind him was nerve wracking.

Jingles was right next to me when I first joined the peloton. His CO₂ cartridges (used for quickly inflating a tire after fixing a flat) constantly rattled against the saddle rail. Irritating. I lost track of Jingles for a while (he pulled ahead at some point), and then passed him at about 30 miles.

Smiley was a thin younger guy who came blowing by me on a hill at about 40 miles with a big ol’ smile on his face. I caught up when he slowed at the top, and we worked together for a few miles. But he dropped off the back and I never saw him again after the 46 mile stop.

Blue was a younger woman who was with the peloton early on, but then I lost track of her. She was tiny, but a really strong rider. I was surprised to see her coming up behind me at about 65 miles. We shared the road for a while, until I pulled off at the 69 mile rest stop.

Gray was an older man who I caught up with just after the 50 mile stop, as we were heading down the hill into Mother Neff State Park. There was a small group of us (including Wobbles and Weebles), who passed Gray, but then he passed us again. He wanted to stay in front. So we tucked in behind him through the park. When the road turned up at about 56 miles, Gray, Weebles, and Wobbles went off the front, and I was left alone. The other members of the group couldn’t handle the hill very well. I saw Gray again at the 80 mile stop (he was leaving as I was arriving), and then passed him about five miles from the finish. He was stopped under a tree, trying to cool off.

I caught up with Weebles and Wobbles at 60 miles. They both had got flats by going over a rough railroad crossing too fast. Wobbles didn’t just get a puncture; his tube exploded. He didn’t have a spare tube, so I gave him mine. Surprisingly, Wobbles caught up with me somewhere after the 80 mile stop, but he didn’t last very long. I think he expended too much energy trying to make up the time he’d lost with the flat. The last time I saw him was somewhere before the 90 mile mark.

It had been 10 years since the last time I rode the Waco route. The route had changed quite a bit, but there were still parts that I remembered. Especially the road through the park, and the long lonely road from 60 to 70 miles.

After the ride, I went back to my hotel room and had a cold homebrew beer that I’d brought up just for that occasion.

All in all, it was a great time. I’m very happy with my performance.

“There is an overwhelming amount of scientific and real world evidence that demonstrates that a diet rich in carbohydrates is critical to success in endurance sports. Carbohydrates are stored in the body as liver and muscle glycogen. With it, an athlete’s ability to perform at high intensity is severely diminished, and when it is depleted the dreaded bonk is a distinct possibility.” -Allen Lim in The Feed Zone Cookbook

Even those who try to maintain a paleo diet find that they need to modify that diet at times to include carbohydrates with a high glycemic index. The Paleo Diet for Athletes describes those modifications.

The most crucial time to eat carbohydrates is immediately after a workout. The muscles are depleted and are highly sensitive to insulin, allowing them to quickly store glycogen. Failing to replenish your muscle glycogen stores will lead to much slower recovery, including muscle soreness and weakness that will last a few days.

Most sources say that for high intensity rides of up to two hours, one should consume two grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight within 30 minutes of completing the ride. For rides longer than four hours, increase that to four grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight.

I currently weigh about 81 kilos (180 lbs). Ideally, I should weigh about 165 lbs, or 75 kilos. That’s the number I use when figuring out how much carbohydrate to eat after a long ride. It works out to 300 grams of carbohydrate (1,200 calories) after a four hour ride.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to consume 300 grams of carbohydrate in a short period of time?

Medium grain white rice has a little over 50 grams of carbohydrate per cup (uncooked). Imagine scarfing six cups of rice. Depending on the pasta, you get 40 to 45 grams per cup of cooked pasta. That’s about six and a half cups of cooked pasta (13 oz uncooked). Imagine throwing almost a pound of spaghetti into a pot, cooking it up, and then eating it all.

It’s really, really hard to eat 300 grams of carbohydrate quickly.

Rice and pasta are about as good as it gets when it comes to high carbohydrate foods. That’s why a lot of people turn to recovery drinks that contain maltodextrin. One example (I’m not endorsing this product, as I’ve never tried it) is Mike’s Milk, which packs 73 grams of carbohydrate into a 100 gram serving. With their suggested mixing ratio of 100 grams per 1/2 cup of milk, I’d only need to drink two cups (16 oz) of milk to get the carbs I need.

There are many different recovery drinks, but you have to be careful what you get. Those that contain primarily fructose and other sugars are inexpensive, but not all that good for you. You want something that has more complex carbohydrates. You can purchase maltodextrin in bulk and mix your own drink. Search for “homemade sports drink maltodextrin,” and you’ll find some good (and lots of bad) suggestions. The most difficult part is actually obtaining the maltodextrin, which is somewhat difficult to find in stores (the local Whole Foods store didn’t carry it), but easily available online.

Friday I went in for a bike fit. That is, I had somebody who knows what he’s doing adjust my riding position for optimum performance and comfort. I had done this a couple of years ago, but things change. My body has changed, and the guys at the bike shop probably didn’t put everything back exactly in the same position when I had the bike repainted.

The adjustments we made range from a few millimeters forward or back in some places, and a full centimeter in saddle height. It feels completely different. It’s amazing how less than an inch of modification in the riding position can feel so totally alien.

One of the changes involved replacing the stem (the part that holds the handlebars). The old stem was almost horizontal and made a perfect place to put my Garmin bicycling computer. The new stem has a fairly steep angle, which places the cycling computer at an angle that makes it impossible for me to read from my normal bicycling position.

So, putting my wood carving tools to practical use, I created a little wedge, hollowed out the back a bit so that it would fit on the stem, and then finished it. The result is that the bike computer again rides horizontal.

That should work well, although the wedge is still a bit unstable. I’ll take it for a test ride tomorrow morning. If it wiggles too much, I can replace the rubber pad between the wedge and the stem with rubber cement. That should hold reasonably well. If it doesn’t work, I’ll have to fashion a bracket that clamps around the stem to hold things in place more securely.

There are other options. I could mount the bike computer on the handlebar, where I had mounted the old one. I prefer it on the stem, but if the wedge doesn’t work out I’ll probably get tired of messing with it and put the computer on the handlebar.

And, no, I don’t envision slowly replacing components with wood until I have an all-wood bicycle.

I decided to do an organized ride to get an idea of where I am in my training. It’s also a good chance to practice group riding and dealing with rest stops. The Katy Flatland ride seemed like a good event because it’s well organized, has a reasonably large number of participants (about 2,500). Also, the course really is flat. Total elevation gain over the 62 mile course is less than 300 feet. Contrast that to my last 50-mile ride, where I climbed 1,700 feet. I wanted a flat course for this test.

The Katy ride has an open start. That is, riders can start any time after 6:30 AM. There’s no grand start as there is in most other events. I rode up from the hotel (about a mile away), and arrived about 15 minutes early. A large group of riders was already there, and we started off right at 6:30 AM.

It was cool for the Houston area, about 75 degrees, cloudy, and almost no wind. The first mile of the ride is down a narrow two-lane road. With so many riders packed into a narrow space, it’s best to just stay with the pack, patiently passing slower riders until the road widens. After about two miles, the pack had thinned out and we were moving right along. It was still crowded, but not dangerously so.

I was prepared to do the entire ride “by myself.” That is, I wasn’t planning on joining a paceline or teaming up with any other riders to share drafting. I don’t have anything against drafting. It’s just that I’ve had some bad experiences with following other riders who do stupid things. Still, the benefits of riding in a group are difficult to ignore. In particular, you can save a lot of energy by drafting.

I was cranking along at about 78% of my max heart rate and caught up with a large group. I sat at the back to rest a bit and open a package of food. After scarfing some quick energy and washing it down with a couple large swallows of water, I looked down at my heart rate monitor. It read 72%. I was going perhaps .2 MPH slower than what I had been doing at 78%, but was using far less energy in doing so. I decided to stay with the pack a while.

These groups are constantly changing during the rides. Others like me will catch up, or people we pass will latch on. And riders are always dropping off the back, realizing that even with the benefits of drafting they’re burning too much energy. I’ve done it plenty of times in the past. When I saw this group splitting–the faster riders pulling away–I accelerated to keep with them. After a while there was a group of five or six of us (including one tandem), each taking about a 3-minute turn at the front before dropping to the back and working our way up. We stayed together for perhaps 10 miles until the 27 mile rest stop.

I left that rest stop with one other rider who had been with me in the larger group. Unfortunately, he was doing the 44 mile route, and headed the other way at about mile 30. From then until the rest stop at mile 49, I was on my own.

I actually like riding by myself but after an hour and a half of group riding, being alone is something of a shock. And it’s a lot more work, too. This stretch also had some of the worst roads on the whole course. But the routine is the same: pedal, watch the heart rate, drink and eat on schedule, watch the scenery, do a little on-the-bike stretching when things get stiff. Oh, and keep an eye out for direction signs. It’s very easy to miss a turn on one of these rides and end up out in the weeds somewhere.

This was the worst part of the ride for me. The only other people I saw were two girls at about mile 32, directing me to make a right turn, a few Boy Scouts at the 37-mile rest stop (I didn’t stop), and a single other rider on a recumbant bicycle. He was far ahead of me when I first spotted him, but I was steadily gaining on him. When we turned into the wind at mile 41, he wasn’t more than a hundred yards in front of me. I don’t know if he started feeling better or I started feeling worse, but as soon as we turned into the wind he started pulling away. Perhaps the reduced wind resistance of the recumbant made the difference.

That eight miles was the worst part of the ride for me. The road was almost perfectly flat there, and I was cranking along at 17 or 18 MPH, but at a really high heart rate. My legs were sore and my left foot kept going numb. And the wind, light as it was (less than 10 MPH), was dispiriting. The rider I had been following was out of sight and I was truly alone for the first time in the ride. I started to get concerned after a while, thinking that I had missed a turn sign. I knew that there was a right turn before the 49 mile rest stop, but didn’t know just how far before. It would have been nice to see a few “keep going” signs posted on that road. That half hour of the ride was lonely.

I stopped at 49 miles to fill my water bottles and stretch a moment, and I was back on the road. Only 13 miles to go. A couple miles out, I joined up with another rider and we started trading off pulls again. Once more, we were sharing the road with riders doing the shorter distances. Those riders are slower, which doesn’t really present a problem, but they’re also less familiar with the rules. They tend to ride in the middle of the road, weave a lot, and not pay attention to the possibility of others coming up behind them. So lots of calls of “on your left” preceded our zipping by as we made our way to the finish.

Unlike many rides I’ve done, I finished this one strong. I had plenty of energy left when I crossed the line. It was, I thought, one of my better rides.

I’m happy with my performance. I covered 61.2 miles in 3:18:56, giving me an average speed of 18.5 MPH. I spent a total of 10 minutes at the two rest stops. My moving average speed was 19.5 MPH. Average heart rate for the entire ride was 155 beats per minute, or 75% of my max.

More interesting to me is the difference between the first and second halves of the ride. I did the first half of the ride (mostly with a group) at an average speed of 19.4 MPH (moving average 20.4 MPH), and an average heart rate of 73%. The second half of the ride, most of which was by myself, I covered at 17.6 MPH (18.6 MPH moving average), and an average heart rate of 77%. It definitely pays to stay with a group!

Overall, I think it was a great ride. I have a few things I need to work on, and I know that the Waco course isn’t anywhere near this flat. But then, I have two more months of training before that ride.

Before this year, I’d never made a conscious effort to lose weight. Sure, I’d be a few pounds heavy after taking a winter off from riding, but those pounds would melt away after a week or two of steady training. But I took four years off before I did my training in 2010, and I didn’t lose much weight that year. I also took 2011 off from riding. Meanwhile, I continued to eat poorly. In particular, lots of fast food and four to six cans of Coca Cola every day.

I knew that I was packing on the pounds; the scale doesn’t lie. But I didn’t fully appreciate the result until I was standing in line at a convenience store one morning. I don’t know why, but when I see something in a store security monitor I look around to see if I can spot it directly. I think it has to do with wanting to see the same thing from multiple perspectives at the same time. On this particular morning I saw a fat guy standing near where I was standing. It took me a couple seconds looking around and another glance at the monitor to realize that the fat guy was me.

At the end of February, Debra started a workout program at the gym and also started cooking smaller, more healthy meals. I had begun working from home about a week before that, and had been trying to eat at home for lunch rather than going out for fast food every day. The day Debra started her workouts, the bathroom scale said 205.1 when I stood on it. Time to do something about that.

It took me another month to get off my butt and start doing something. My first ride this year was April 18. About two weeks later I announced two goals: to complete the Waco Wild West Century in less than six hours, and to have my weight down to 170 lbs by September 22 (the date of the ride). I’ve been slowly changing my diet, and at the beginning of June (after a month of getting accustomed to the bike again) I hired a coach to help me prepare for the century ride.

This morning the scale read 184.1. So far I’m down 21 lbs in just under 20 weeks. That matches what I think is ideal weight loss of a pound per week. I’m a month into the coaching program, and I’m already a much stronger rider. I’m surprised at how effective a targeted training program can be.

There’s no doubt that all the exercise helps with the weight loss. I’m doing four bicycle workouts per week, and spending one or two hours in the gym each week working on core and upper body strength. The bicycle workouts averaged 850 calories each in June. This month’s workouts will average quite a bit more, because the rides will be longer. In addition, there’s a benefit to getting stronger: I burn more calories with the same amount of effort. That is, if I average 15 MPH when riding at 65% of my max heart rate, I’ll burn more calories than if I average 12 MPH at the same heart rate. The stronger I get, the easier it is to burn calories. I’ve already seen a 20% improvement in my speed at low intensities.

There is a downside to burning all those calories, though. My body can handle a 500 calorie daily deficit, no problem. But if I go out and burn 1,200 calories on a single ride, I’m hungry. If I’m not careful, I’ll really pig out and actually gain weight that day. It’s a constant battle, especially when I do long rides. Even at just 500 calories per day, it seems like I’m always hungry.

Some people have asked me my “secret.” There really isn’t any mystery. In addition to the exercise, I’ve done the following:

I’m now drinking diet soda at home. Considering that I used to drink four to six cans of soda every day, replacing that with diet drinks removes 500 to 900 calories per day from my diet. I also don’t much like the taste of the diet soda, and can see myself eliminating it from my diet altogether. Well, except when I go out to eat. I don’t miss the sugar. I just have to get myself off the caffeine.

I’m teaching myself to stop eating when my hunger is satisfied rather than continuing to eat until I’m full. It’s tough. Every time I get up without finishing everything on my plate, I can hear my mom and the upperclassmen at military school telling me to clean my plate. I’ve found that if I put less on my plate to begin with, I don’t get those feelings of guilt. I can always go back for more, but it’s surprising how infrequently I need to do that.

I’ve never been much of one for sweets, except for the soda. So that’s not a problem. Since I’ve become more selective about what I eat, I’ve found that I appreciate sweets more than I used to. When I do indulge, I really enjoy it and it takes only a small portion to satisfy my craving.

From my perspective, achieving and maintaining an ideal weight is a lifestyle change. It took me years to add those 35 pounds I’m working off, so I can’t expect them to come off overnight. And I’ve read enough about dieting to understand that crash diets are incredibly effective for losing weight, but not very effective in the long term. A disturbingly large number of people who lose weight on those diets end up gaining it all back within a few years. The reason is that they haven’t made the fundamental lifestyle and attitude changes that allow them to maintain their new weight once they’ve achieved their weight loss goal.

I’m hoping that, with the changes I’m making and a modest goal of a pound per week, I can avoid the ping pong effect.