Birthday Ride!

Gotten a little behind in the updates! Trying out a slightly different format for this one.

So today is/was my birthday! 34. Yip!

Headed out for a ride, planning to pull off a 30min Tempo. Felt good off the start. Kept an eye on my HR, it was in a good range. I've been hit with a 'low level' cold the last few weeks...my HR would really elevate riding at my EM pace..today it was down where it should be - yay!

Made my way out to Sidney the usual way, it was overcast with a threat of rain. Opted to ride the Ridley and take a chance..it was my birthday!!

Started my Tempo in the usual spot, and was tearing down Lochside, and at the corner just before the MacTavish construction, this huge, oncoming water truck crosses the road and into the bike lane and just STOPS THERE!!! WTF?? I manage to stop, although i was well over 30kph...i get around it, and pick up my pace again, and then i see what this truck was doing: soaking the road. WTFx2?! The road had been dry (very slight spitting), but this goof was driving along dumping water on the road.

I slowed down, as i don't want to get any more dirty/wet than necessary...summer bike and all. I look ahead, and there tons more water on the road. GAAH!! I'd gotten 17min into my Tempo, and was feeling GREAT. I've since checked my watts, and i had been averaging 270w. For fracks sake..

I pulled the plug there, if i were to keep going, i didn't know how much further the road was wet, and it's pointless to have a 5min break in the middle of this type of interval. Ahh well, here's the brief summary:

Ave Wts: 270

Ave HR: ~170

Ave Cad: 73

Ave Spd: 32.1kph

There was even a perfect headwind, so i wouldn't pick up too much speed downhill...gaah.. Not 100% on the HR, PowerTap head wasn't picking it up..

So one new feature of my entries will be GPS data! The Garmin Edge 500 i ordered finally came in, and has some pretty sweet features! I *love* having the big Lap/Interval functions and visual. The worst thing about the PowerTap head unit is that it only displays 3 items. I typically have Watts, Speed and Time (or Cadence.) Now i have all that data right there..hehe.. Unfortunately it can't connect to my wired PowerTap unit (what i have on the road), so no power data, but just about everything else is in this file:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/25415146

If you're non-American, click on 'Metric' in the top right to make sense of it all. ;)

Lots of neat stuff you can click around on...i love the mapping and elevation features. This will be even cooler when i get out on the MTB (esp. since it IS a wireless PowerTap.)

Today i also did another Mt Doug effort. Last time i went up was Jan 21st, did it in 8min flat, averaged 310w. Today did it in 8:08, but only averaged 305w.. On the Garmin link above, it's Interval #7, if you want to check out the elevation data.

So another thing i'm doing is posting ALL my wattage data, but instead of filling up my blog, i'm going to save it in Google Docs, so here's today:

http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgdbj3nx_15d6ndbwhq

You can see the Mt Doug effort, the Tempo, the Garmin section (the same period recorded as the Garmin) and the entire ride, which has me riding to the shop, and back home from there. (I don't really feel the need to include my home address. ;)

No major peaks, although my 1 and 2hr NP are pretty high, averaging 243w over 2hrs..that's a lot more wattage than i'm used to seeing over that period!

The other news: i've upgraded my Niner RIP9 mtb to the orange frame i've been lusting over for months:



It's significantly stiffer, and ORANGE!!! Hopefully will get out for a ride on Thursday...if not, Sunday. =)

Calling it a night, g'nite world! (I'll update the rest of my last week soon!)

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