I would like to thank Ray for asking Steve and I to join him at hell week. At first ,the thought of a vacation called Hell Week was a little scary. Could I climb the hills , would I be able to keep up? We had a perfect B & B only 4 blocks from the start of the daily rides. This gave us about 3 bonus miles a day.The house was very nice 2 bedroom 2 bath. The sweet lady that owned the house loved Steve .She told him her life story.She left us some home made breads and egg casseroles, she was a great cook.  
  I went to Hell Week to get some great training miles in I had set a miles goal that I thought could be easy to reach, but with using 1 day  to crewing for John ( I learned more in that 24 hours then I have in 2 years of riding) So that was a great trade off. I missed my goal by only 35 miles. We had no time to ride on Thursday we had to get home to work. We got in 4 days to riding.  
 
Sunday- The Harper Hot Dog. We only got 2 hours of sleep after driving back to Fredricksburg from the race on Saturday. We decided to just do a C ride a 50 mile route out and back. I started the ride not riding very well I keep following off the back even on the down hills. I thought I might  be dehydrated, We stopped and I drink a 24 ounce bottle of water then I used my inhaler then we went on. It took us (me) 2 hours to ride 23 miles. When we got to the turn around we took a few minutes to talk to some of the other rides. I was very down thinking I was going to have a  very tough week. As we went to ride back I could not push my bike in the gravel, My brake was so tight on my front wheel I could not roll it. Steve and Ray fixed it and off we went. We make the return in about a hour.  Great start to the week.  
 
Monday- We rode the B route the The rock and the loop. We had a great nice ride down to the valley . Stopped and had lunch on some rocks by a creek, then onto the Enchanted rock state park  some big hills out of the valley. Steve's  Achilles started to hurt. We rode on for a little whenl then Steve took off a ankle support he was wearing and that was supposed to releave the pain. The sleeve was too tight. Ray was getting low on water we stopped at the park to get water. The climb over the rock was pretty tough, as we rode up this hill a man in a truck is taking our picture and said he did not think bike could make it up the hill. We did and the on to a  very pretty rode lower crab apple. Ray had a flat tire. Now we all have had a little bit of bad luck, On with the week. This still was one of the best days.
 
Tuesday-B route Take me to the river. Linda,Mark,Ray John S. Steve and I set out with about 30+ other rides. John was only going to start out with us for a little ways then go and ride his prescribed recovery ride. We got sepatared from Ray,Linda and Mark before long we were out on some nice rode just John Steve and I we turn a corner and in front of us is a very long steep hill I say something like holy crap, as Steve makes short work of the monster hill. John is watching us climb I am sorry to say I had to tack(paperboy) the hill but I got up it. John then gave me some pointer on climbing. As we rode back John help us with drafting off recumbents and diamond frames.  This was a very hard ride for me but I learned so much. We ended the ride with 85 miles with 3000 feet of climbing. 15.5MPH My Max Heart rate was 176 my average was 146. Johns heart rate average was only 97. I think I need to get a lot stronger on the hills. All in all one of the more rewording ride today.
 
Wednesday-B route Tunnel-bach. 54 miles of being a tourist Ray Mark, Linda Steve and I rode to bat cave overlook this was a fun casual pace stopping to take pictures and talk to other rides a long the way. at the Tunnel we ate lunch at a cute little cafe with outstanding burgers and homemade chips none of which is on a training diet. Then on to Luckenbach this ride didn't have much climbing so it was a nice recovery ride for all of us. In Luckenbach we had  a beer  then Linda and I rode on together, leaving the men to explore the bat caves. I had a great time riding just for fun. Wednesday night we had Linda and Mark over for dinner and then a 3 mile walk into town. this was a perfect way to end a great week.  
 
Next year: We will stay the whole we and I will be a much better climber. Only 11months 27 day away. Thanks to Steve and Ray , Mark and Linda for a great week. Thanks to John S. for teaching us how to crew and all the other lessons we learned from him. It was fun to see another side of John & Mark M.
 
                                                             Mrs Strada
 

Here are a few of the pointers that John gave me:
 
1. climb hills one handed if is safe. This keeps you from over steering on the climb.
2. Powering up the hills is OK, this helps to cut the hill in half.
3. long climbs:
     start out in middle ring holing 70 to 80 RPMs hold that as long as you can as you start to slow down drop one gear at a time holding that gear as long as you can at least 5 seconds do this until go get to middle ring 1 then if you need to drop into granny gear move back up to middle ring 4 or 5 before go to granny gear that way you don't spin out. And this gives you a few more gears to use.
I know this is all so basic but it was not for me.  
The other part of climbing that John shared we us was not to cost down hill but pedal all the way down to hold or even improve your speed.
 
                                                                          Pedalin' Peggy

Quote from Pedalin` Peggy on Mar 22^nd, 2009, 3:08pm:

 
 
That's just because John falls asleep coasting downhill...