Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Observations from the Saddle

Last nights ride was a 22-mile endurance, ie slow, ride. It was a long-ish ride though. I've ridden 30-mile rides a couple of weeks ago, but tonight's was harder. Why? Well, over the past few weeks I've basically just ridden AMAFAP. AMAFAP is as much, as fast, as possible.

Tonight, watching my heart rate montior and keeping a constant high Zone 2 rate proved to me that I wasn't riding as hard as I thought when I was pushing things, and I wasn't getting the recovery I needed when I was going slow. This is why it's best to follow a plan! I learned this lesson last year, but forgot this.

So I was supposed to maintain Zone 2 heart rate. I did for the most part. At times it was hard not to drop the hammer. Hardest when I got passed up by a girl. A cute girl. On a single speed, no less! I realize it isn't a race until it's a race... but getting blown past by a girl... on a single speed no less... it's really hard not to put the hammer down!!

Seeing this young lady pedaling with her high cadence got me to thinking... I know a LOT more girls that ride single speed than guys. Yet, riding single-speed is supposedly a "manly" thing to do....hmm... I seem to recall that females have more fast twitch muscle mass. (That may be backwards, I'm not sure). Maybe that's why they do well with the high cadence of a S-S.

I pondered this for the last 45-minutes of my ride... told you these slow rides are boring! Oh, I did see a biker almost hit a opening car door on Heights Blvd... but he dodged it!

TONIGHTS RIDE = DEAD BATTERIES
I got about 2 miles from the house when my heart monitor started acting up. It would show 220 bpm, then nothing, then it worked ok for a few seconds. Finally, after about 10 minutes of this, it just quit completely. I'm pretty sure its the chest strap battery. Remebering my average speed from last night's ride, I just matched gear and speed and assumed my heartrate would be the same. That's all I could do. Not 15 minutes later, the battery in my iPod went dead! Now that made me mad! These Zone 2 rides are boring enough. So I enjoyed the solitude and and hum of my tires across the pavement. All too soon it was over.

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