Training Ride Episode 2

Hello friends!

I completely forgot to take any pictures or video or map my ride. Sadly, I think we're going to have to get used to that being a reality!

My day started at 7:00 am with a ride to work. I'm actually always pretty thankful for the short little 4 mile trek to work. I used to do a 1.25 mile trip, down McMurray road and up the big hill at the high school. When I first started getting into cycling, I couldn't make it up that hill. I'd have to stop and walk my bike up while I wheezed and panted. Now, that ride is too easy, I get to work and barely feel like I've done anything.

So now I take a loop from my house, up Bethel Church Rd, and then down Fort Couch through the mall. All in all it's about 4 miles, with some minor hills. It's nothing amazing, but it's a really great way to start your day. The sun was just coming up over the hills, and it felt really great to be out and be on the road.

Later on in the day, Ed and I rode our bikes back up to the mall to hang out with some of our students on a field trip. Again, not much to write home about, but it was another two miles on the bike that I wouldn't otherwise have had. I would really like to get to a place where I don't use my car hardly at all, so it was a victory in that sense.

Then, to close the day I met up with some guys from the Fort Couch Potatoes for a training ride in South Park. I am a proud member of the Road Kill Warriors, but they're based out of Monroeville, so it's a bit harder to get out to do training rides with them, so I the guys from FCP were nice enough to adopt me for a day. Well, that's where the niceness stopped, because they kicked my butt all up and down the hills of South Park.

I really need to get stronger on hills, both up and down. Going up, I think I'm carrying way too much weight with me still. I felt better as the ride went on, but up front I was panting pretty madly again. Coming down the hills, I'm still not used to the massive speeds that a road bike is capable of reaching when you just let it go. Something in my brain tells me that there's no way those half inch tires can hold me up when I'm going 30+ miles an hour. So these are two areas that I want to work on, so I think I need to spend a bunch more time at South Park. The lack of cars there is nice!

All told, the stats of the day are:

18 miles
13.4 average mph.
1:20 on the bike.

Tonight, Sarah and I are going for a walk/jog around the neighborhood, and tomorrow (rain) I'm hoping to get to the gym to build a bit more strength in my legs.
More to come!

Godspeed,

J