June rides....hopefully a pleasant month of weather and rides for all

[azfiddle]

Today was a "training" ride, now that I am participating in a coaching program.

The schedule activity was this: Endurance Focus Ride: Medium
Once you are warmed up, keep your heart rate between 117 and 136 bpm. Make the total exercise time at least 1 hour 30 minutes but not more than 2 hours 45 minutes including warm up and cool down. If you get tired or have trouble keeping your heart rate up, finish out the time with your heart rate between 100 and 119 bpm. Spin a comfortable cadence while warming up and cooling down.

I picked pedal stroke as my focus from a list of 7 options:
Focus on one quarter of the pedal stroke at a time, doing 20 strokes for each quarter before moving to the next quarter. Thus, push down 20 times. Then pull back 20 times. Then pull up 20 times. Then push forward 20 times. When you have done all four quarters in this way, do halves: Down and back 20 time. Back and up 20 times. Up and over 20 times. Over and down 20 times. Repeat sets of quarters and then halves until you drop to your Recovery Zone or are ready to cool down.

You know that expression fast, good or cheap- you can pick 2? I feel like these training rides are like that. Follow the guideline for the activity, keep the right cadence, stay in the right heart rate zone. I can do the activity and keep up the cadence or manage my heart rate, but not all three. I picked a slightly hilly route so the HR was just out the window on most of the climbs. And I by chance, I ended up riding along with a 78 year old guy on a light mountain bike who told me about riding to the Grand Canyon and another ride from Flagstaff to Mexico, and we discovered we had mutual friends, so I didn't concentrate on counting pedal strokes the whole time, but it was still an interesting exercise. And I'm in awe of the 78 year old- wow- I hope I'm that fit in 20 years!

[ny biker]

I'm going to get rained out again tonight. I think this is the third or fourth time since the beginning of May that my Wednesday night ride has been rained out. The thing is that it might not rain until later, but if it does start earlier it will be a thunderstorm and I just don't want to be out in one of those. Several of the times I have cancelled recently, it turned out that the rain never materialized, but I'm being cautious because I hate trying to ride in heavy rain and I refuse to ride in gusty winds.

Now I have to decide -- cancel my appointment with my personal trainer tomorrow and ride then, or go out and ride after work on Friday, which might be difficult since I have a mid-day appointment so I might end up working late afterwards.

Meanwhile I keep gaining weight, and one big reason is that I'm not getting the mid-week exercise that I need. Boo.

[cosc]

I finally was able to ride my bike after a very windy day and several days of thunderstorms. The rain was wonderful but not great for training for Bran (Ride across Nebraska) coming up this weekend. I'm hoping for a calm weather week.
Today's 41 mile ride was great with low 70's and no wind. Everything looks lush green except for fields with crops just starting. I'm looking forward to the mature sunflower fields.

[Irulan]

Here is how my ride went to today. Let me preface this with last night we had to cancel due to massive regional t-storms. This morning it was gorgeous, and I was contacted about 7 am for a mountain bike ride.

Right off the bat I went over a pile of dog poo that was hiding and got it flung onto my new shoes.
Then we hit a little mud puddle about 1/2 mile into the ride. Being a good trail citizen I went through the puddle and not around it. Whatever that mud was... well, it was some sort of horrible sticky clay. It jammed up the jockey wheels in the derailler and before I even know what had happened I snapped the derailler off. I was hoping to pull the derailler off and single speed the rest of the ride but I was having problems with the chain tool. I could get the chain off via the master link, but I couldn't shorten it. I ended up taking the chain and derailler off and coasting back to the lot.

[Veronica]

What a bummer! Hope the next ride is much better!

Veronica

[ny biker]

I'm going to get rained out again tonight. I think this is the third or fourth time since the beginning of May that my Wednesday night ride has been rained out. The thing is that it might not rain until later, but if it does start earlier it will be a thunderstorm and I just don't want to be out in one of those. Several of the times I have cancelled recently, it turned out that the rain never materialized, but I'm being cautious because I hate trying to ride in heavy rain and I refuse to ride in gusty winds.

Now I have to decide -- cancel my appointment with my personal trainer tomorrow and ride then, or go out and ride after work on Friday, which might be difficult since I have a mid-day appointment so I might end up working late afterwards.

Meanwhile I keep gaining weight, and one big reason is that I'm not getting the mid-week exercise that I need. Boo.

So the evening rain never materialized, despite the menacing clouds. Of course if I had taken a chance and gone for a ride, we would have had a deluge. Anyway I went for a walk after I got home from work, which is better than nothing.