R&R

Today‘s day off was planned and very timely. I‘m at 982 miles to-date with just under 41,000’ of elevation gain. Like many things I do, it turns out my starting spot in Shreveport wasn’t terribly well thought out from a rigor standpoint. I use a variety of different tools to track and plan my ride, but one of my favorites is MapMyRide. The website is better than the app, but in all my excitement over planning this thing, I fell into an easy trap. The site allows you to make some very detailed routes and also will show you the elevation profile, with the grade if you choose. The shorter the ride, the more accurate the grade profile is. When mapping out a 75-80 mile route, it might show that your whole day is spent between 850’ and 1100’ of elevation, so you think “how bad can that be?” Over a 5-mile stretch, maybe you gain 250’ of elevation, which averages about a 1% grade. If you shrink the map and just look at that 5-mile stretch as a stand-alone, you see you actually do 8

different climbs that total 1200’. Just another rookie mistake. Hopefully by the time June rolls around, I’ll have this nailed! I did finally figure out the Strava app, though, and that’s where I get my actual mileage, speed, elevation gain, and most importantly for a fat guy like me, calories burned.

The plan tomorrow is to head down the Natchez Trace Parkway as far as I can make it. More hills on tap as I head south through Tennessee but it should begin to flatten out as I go through Mississippi and Alabama and reach the Gulf Coast by next weekend.

State Grades so far, with a brief description:

Tennessee - A (friends, food, family history)

Kentucky - A (surprisingly flat)

Oklahoma - B (surprisingly scenic)

Arkansas - B minus (rabid dogs)

Texas - C (if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all)

Missouri - C minus (rednecks and dead armadillos everywhere)

Louisiana - D (litter everywhere)

Kansas - D (meth addicts)