Route Update: April

All hotels are booked, so I have made a few slight changes to the route.

Original Itinerary

New Itinerary

The changes start at Day 12. I added about 20 miles to finish in Pampa, TX instead of Borger, TX. From there I decided to route through Anadarko, OK instead of New Cordell, OK. I mainly switched because of the hotel situation. It makes for a long Day 13, but Day 14 becomes shorter and a rest day of sorts.

On Day 15 I switched from Talihina, OK to Heavener, OK. This was a route change that I didn't necessarily want to make, but the hotel situation forced my hand. The switch removes a section of the Talimena Scenic Byway. It's unfortunate, but I'll still get to ride half of the Byway. On the positive side, the switch adds extra mileage to the route as a whole, pushing it over the 3,000 mile mark. I don't know why, I wanted that number. It's one of those irrational human things. Is a 100 mile ride more impressive than a 99 mile ride? No, but I'd ride that extra 1 mile almost every time. Is 3,000 more impressive than 2,900? Probably not.

Those are the only major changes. The other cities stayed the same, but mileages may have changed slightly because of more exact routing from hotel to hotel. I've updated the daily GPS files and the big route map on the website.

Training Update: March

After a slow February, I picked things up a little in March. I had 1,400 miles for the month and 9 centuries. (For the year I'm sitting at 3,700 miles and 23 centuries.) Most importantly, I was able to complete a 4-day block of training where I averaged 119 miles per day. There's more detail on those 4 days here if you're interested.

I felt good during the 4-day block and I'm getting a better feel for how I have to pace myself for multiple long days in a row. However, 4 days is less than 20% of what I'll need to do for Petoji. I feel good about my progress so far, but I still understand that I have a lot more work to do.

Towards the end of May I might have time to fit in a 9-day block of training, so I'm going to use April to focus on back-to-back rides. I want to do 2 100-mile rides in a row on 3 of the 4 weekends. I also want to squeeze in one double century. There are a few days around 170 miles, so I want a few doubles in the bank before Petoji.

There won't be any long training blocks, but April should be a busy month and May will be even more important.