Week 10 Hit the Road Jack

Wow, did that feel good.  It was like having a piece of chocolate pie when you haven't had it in years.  It's smooth with a crunchy graham crust and leaves the chocolaty rich taste in your mouth.  That is what my first ride on the road felt like today.

I started at the Home Depot near my home where I parked.  My home is situated on a hill that I knew would be too much at this point for me to climb.  I rode up Black Mountain Rd to where it changes to Kearney Villa Road once it crosses over Mira Mar Rd.  The course didn't have a lot of climbing.  My Garmin recorded 299 ft in total.  The first little hill at 4% grade was about a 1/2 mile long just before the change in street names.  My expectations is this is where I would feel pain or a problem because of the additional muscle strength need to climb.  To my surprise, it felt great.

This was not a full out hard ride to say the least.  My goal was to test the legs and iron out any problems.  So I kept the pace at a nice easy moderate rate.  I wasn't breathing hard at all and again was impressed with my average speed on the way out, 20 MPH.  Of course that was with the wind at my back.  The return route I was averaging 14 MPH.  The end average was 16.5.  Heart Rate average was 165 BPM which is good for me.  I'll need to retest my max rate which in the past has been as high as 205.  I have a resting rate of 50 when laying down and 55 when sitting. 

I scared myself when I put on my cycling gear which is mostly black.  Those legs were albino white.  Even a little bit of color would be an improvement and night send the children off screaming and pointing at the ghost.   I was impressed with the muscle definition at this point.  The calf at least has some tone.  Crystal likes my legs too...she's a leg woman.

The knee over all feels good now that I'm sitting and writing but I can tell I'll need to ice for about 30 minutes after a quick shower.  Prior to the ride I went down to the Kolby Swap Meet with Crystal and walked around for 2 1/2 hours.  So again, coupling that with the cycling today I think I put the knee through it's paces and the end result is very positive.  Just have to keep up this process and focus.

Tomorrow I head out to Colorado on a business trip for 3 days.  I'll take along some workout clothes and my iPad with some training videos.  I don't want to stop now.  Things are just starting to come together.

The LLS training will begin at the end of the month and I now feel a bit more confident in my ability to lead this group.  You don't have to be the strongest rider in the group but you certainly don't want to be hanging off the back.  It's a matter of putting the miles now to gain back the endurance while slowly adding in strength and power.  For now, I'll focus on the endurance and start increasing the time in the saddle.  Today was less than an hour but over 30 minutes.