I rode the second day of the MS150. It was my first ride with my shiny new Garmin Edge 305, because after my last ride with the Polar, I was just too sick of it to withstand using it again. I had to jiggle it all the time to get it to stay in touch with the contacts, it lost over 10 miles of the ride, etc.

The Garmin is just a dream. Configurable displays, HRM + cadence + speed + GPS + altimeter. It's great.

One thing I noticed (and my low average cadence demonstrates) is that I coasted a lot. We left late (because we didn't know we were supposed to wake up early to get in line) so I spent a lot of time just coasting along waiting for oncoming cars to pass in their traffic lane so I could move left into that lane to pass the thousands of slower riders we were grouped with. Furthermore, the pace lines I cut in with weren't super tight, and fluctuated a lot in speed, so I'd pedal for a bit and then have to just let up or even brake not to hit the guy in front of me. Kent observes that -- assuming I were riding in a more hardcore group than I was -- stopping pedaling and coasting is actually quite annoying to those behind me.

Knee: I figured out what was causing the inflammation. I had my right heel turned into my bike a bit too much. Straightening it out so it pointed almost directly forward totally solved that problem. Still, I had some heat / friction around the quadriceps tendon towards the end, which I assume is just minor tendinitis from overuse. My knee is sore today, but nothing like last week, when I was limping around for days.

Okay, data updated with the info from the Garmin. Owning that thing just makes me excited to get out and ride even more. In particular, I was hoping it'd have basemap support on the unit, which it doesn't, but the GPS is still extremely handy since it'll plot the route out later on my PC and let me see how it corresponds to the elevation and whatnot. And I tend not to remember directions for group rides, I just follow along kind of blindly, so it'll be nice to have it saving off the routes for me.

Okay, not quite the San Marcos ride. We did a fair amount of it, but turned around after riding down the highway feeder road instead of crossing the highway to do more. Still, it was a good 60 miles. A beautiful day today.

I had some knee pain, annoyingly. I thought I had addressed it, but I can tell it's going to take some mindfulness to keep me out of bad habits with the foot and knee positioning, and I have to be constantly working to hold all the muscles just right through every stroke. I think it's under control to where the MS150 won't be a problem, at least, but it would be nice to form new, good habits so I don't have to concentrate quite so hard while I ride. I like zoning out for a while sometimes. Well, mindfulness practice, it's a blessing in disguise, I suppose.

Went out with Mark to ride the Real Ale Ride, which they then called because of the weather. We rode the 25-mile loop anyway, just to warm up and get at least a little riding in. The wind was so strong we were doing 25-30mph heading south, even up gentle hills. Then we turned around and biked back north, and I was pedaling pretty hard once while going downhill and looked down to see my cycle computer tell me I was doing 10mph. Pedaling hard. Downhill. Awesome.

Bad data for this ride, because my bike computer is junk. I am upgrading, at least.

Biked to and from work. It's a really lovely ride and most of the distance is on quiet roads with few stops. The ride through downtown and then the campus area, though, is pretty rough. Not clear there's a better alternative, though.

It's amazing what happens to my average speed when I ride 70 miles of much flatter terrain than I usually do. Especially when I'm trying to keep up with cyclists who are in a little bit better riding shape than I am the whole time.

Went to Buda with a large group, and six of them said they were going to keep going to San Marcos. I tagged along and it wasn't an insane pace, but I've found that I'm a fast downhill rider and not as fast as climber, in general, so every long stretch of uphill, I'd drop back, and then crank to make up the difference on the way down the other side.

Towards the end we took a section of road that is shared by the Tuesday night race, they said, and I think that must have triggered some kind of muscle memory in them because they hammered it up a notch. Two of the guys fell back, too, so the three of us took the pace down pretty substantially at the end, which was fine with me.

My right knee was complaining in the same way it was on Stratford the other day. Just some compression heat, no acute pain, but I'd certainly prefer it stop. Less climbing in the saddle, more standing, and hopefully it'll stop.