Packed up and drove to San Antonio Thursday to ride with Kent for the weekend and discuss strategy for the upcoming texas state time trials this weekend.  
 
Friday Kent, his friend Gary (rides a Corsa) and I rode to the start of the "Lunch Ride" (aka race) with the Roadrunner club who can seriously turn the pedals.  Right away I forgot my helmet, turned around to ride back up Kent's mountain driveway, and had to stop on the 20+ percent part and somehow ejected my brake pads.  This happened a few more times before I realized I just couldn't brake uphill without that happening for some reason.
 
Of course Kent pretty much killed me during the "warm-up"  Usually my rides and warm up hit in the 180 watt range, with the whole race pace being high 180s to 190w.  Instead I had 215 watts for the warm up alone, and 220 during the race.  Hit 187 bpm heart rate too, and averaged 179 for the race part.  Coming back, I actually experienced upwards cardiac drift for the first time.  Oh, and dropped the chain on the outside of the big ring and managed to wrap it around the crank 3 times before noticing.  Then trying to climb up another 20 percent hill I managed to break my shifter.  Yaay!  57 miles total 3100 feet climbing.
 
Saturday all three of us rode to Fredericksburg and back for 115 HILLY miles.  Was having a great ride but going down a gravel road under construction and having a large group of roadies fly by on the right telling me to get over because there was a car back, but they were blocking me at the same time.  Pissed me off so when I got to the bottom I ramped it up to catch and pass the group flying.  Came around a corner hard and the front tire blew out, sending me down.  Quickly got back up before the roadies came around the bend  Only got a little road rash on the elbow.  Booted the big slash in the new tire and took it easy into Fredericksburg.  Climbed the batcave hill fast though.  It's hard to believe how tough that hill was for me last year.
 
Ate lunch, went to the shop where I bought a new tire and met the inventor of Rocket Shower, my favorite post-ride de-stinker, who works in the bike shop there.  I kept hearing this rattling up front, and at the top of a hill I stopped to check my bottom bracket and discovered 4/5 chainring bolts gone and the one remaining was loose as a goose.  Tightened that and ran the middle chainring the rest of the way back.  Forgot to turn my garmin back on and lost 25 of the hilly miles, but for the 91 miles it was over 5k.  
 
Sunday there were no issues other than me being tired and nearly getting chicked by a fast tri-gal.  Kent got every last erg of energy out of me.  19.5 average on what was supposed to be an easy recovery ride.  I was dizzy when I got off the bike and when I stood up for a few hours after that.  Met Tohopko from the Bacchetta board for lunch, scouted the time trial route, had a nap, and drove home.
 
Had a phenomenal time.  Last year after having done the Helotes-Fredericksburg route and trying to ride again the next day, I had to stop and have Judy come pick my tired butt up.  This year I did three rides to the max and was much faster and stronger overall.  Massive improvement from last year.  Kent has also improved dramatically and still walked away from Gary and I at will and barely broke a sweat.  Thanks for hosting me and helping me improve, Kent!