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Tour Das Hugel - Date set

September 23, 2009 · 4 Comments

Popped into the Hugel site to find it's been renovated and the first thing that caught my eye is that the date has been "officially" set for 11/14/09.

I feel better going into it this year, last year I just wanted to get through it, which I did. I'm not going to put any time goals for the ride, however I want to not suffer as bad and at least beat my 8 hour 24 minute time.

My training plan for the next 2 months for Hugel will focus on hill repeats and endurance. I did a tune up route to gauge where my legs were at today with Andy Webb. We did Smokey Valley, Ladera Norte, Far West, Mesa and Mountain Climb. Plus the ride with Jeff through Bastrop State Park entailed 3300 feet of climbing. Both of these rides my legs felt great and is hopefully a good indication of where my training is at. I'm confident if Hugel was tomorrow I'd be able to get through it again, with probably less suffering. Since my legs are up to the challenge there's one thing I want to focus on and that's to drop some weight. Right now I go from 174 to 177 pounds. If I can get down to 165-170 for Hugel that will help my power to weight ratio and not carrying the extra weight up the hills will be a good thing.

To lose weight I'm not going to significantly cut calories as that will more than likely leave me without the energy to complete my training. Instead I'm going to create a small caloric deficit of 200-300 calories per day. I already eat pretty good so at first I thought this would be hard, but it seems like it will be doable. For example I did not have a Latte in the morning. By cutting it out that's about 180 calories right there. For dinner we had pork tacos and spinach salad. By not having tortillas I was able to cut 330 calories there (110 calories per tortilla).

Using the daily plate, it says my daily intake goal is 2599 calories to lose 1 pound a week and 2,099 calories to lose 2 pounds a week. Whose with me for this year's Tour das Hugel?

Tags: Hills · Hugel · Nutrition

4 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Chris Dornbach // Oct 12, 2009 at 7:43 AM

    This will be my first year riding the Hugel. I went out with my friends this weekend and did about 70 miles of what I think would be the harder half of the ride. Wow! Smokey Valley was the first real climb of the day with Beauford shortly after. I found myself seriously questioning the reality or reasoning for wanting to do the ride. I never came to any conclusions but I am going to ride it. God only knows why. I spent my riding career riding in the high 180's but dropped down to 170-174 early this season and have been holding. I think I'm definitely going to try to get below 170 after Saturdays preview. Having hailed from the East Coast, I'n not sure anyone can appreciate the severity of a couple of these climbs unless they've experienced them first hand. Any way, I'm very excited, in a sick and almost perverse way , and I'll see you there!
  • 2 DPArlington // Oct 18, 2009 at 10:38 AM

    What happened to the TDH webpage ?? We just ran into David _ ( ? I forget) ... one of the Hugel organizers; yesterday towards the end of Outlaw Trail ride in Round Rock. He never mentioned anything about needing a registered username & password to get on the website . Today we can no longer see the site. Any info ? Thanks
  • 3 April // Oct 18, 2009 at 6:13 PM

    I too look forward to this ride, I guess to see what I am made of? perhaps a death wish, haha! I just noticed the same on the TDH website, any info on this will be much appreciated as I would like to see the course so I can practice some of the hills beforehand.
  • 4 Mike // Oct 18, 2009 at 9:02 PM

    I'm not sure what's up with the site, hopefully it's just a glitch over the weekend that will get worked out on Monday. The Hugel email list also noticed that the site was requiring a username/password and this is what was posted up as to what you need to know from the site, the good stuff:

    Be ready to pedal up to 105 miles of roads that include Austin's steepest roads starting at Zilker Park under the MoPac bridge shortly after 7:00 a.m. on Saturday, November 14, 2009.

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