Tour de Houston

Well, I think I've finally adjusted to this week's time change. Sleeping late on Thursday and Friday certainly helped. I know I should have done something like swim or cycle. I kind of cycled on Thursday night--I rode around in the parking lot, trying to get my new-to-me bike adjusted.

Today there was no run. Instead, we did the Tour de Houston. We probably shouldn't have done the actual route. It was from City Hall, down to Minute Maid and over the viaduct (like the marathon route) and over to the Hardy Toll Road. We rode up to the Aldine Bender exit where we turned off and weaved around until we got to the Redstone Golf Course and then virtually back the way we came. It was supposed to be a 40 mile route. I forgot to reset Garmin before we started and then we stopped a couple of time and I forgot to reset it. I think we managed to average more than 15 mph for the whole ride. I came up with 42.5 . . . Will said it was 45 miles. It was good to use the 2-way radios with the headsets. I think I need some practice in using it, but it really helped. Surprisingly, there were quite a few crashed--on good pavement! Luckily I wasn't close to crashing at any time. I think my shorts rubbed a bit. Overall, I don't feel too bad. A little sleepy now (I didn't take a nap).

Still, this isn't a bad ride to do. There's a nice little sack lunch at the end. We should have figured out how to bypass the Redstone part and go straight up to the 70 mile route turn around.

Only on a Tuesday

Of course it was cold and windy today . . . even though it didn't rain. Had to have the heater on last night and heard the wind blowing all night. Needless to say, I had no intention of getting into the cold pool and even less desire to get out of the cold pool into the cold breeze. So, I spent 20 minutes on the CycleOps. I raised the seat about 2 inches. Amazing how much more wattage I got (between 80-114), how much higher my cadence was (between 85 and 100), and how much faster my pace was (between 20.5 and 23.4). I got a bit hot, but my legs weren't nearly as tired.

Class was rather interesting today. The speaker was the vice chancellor of health programs for the UT system. He really knows his stuff and apparently still practices. I can see how he was a driving force behind Code Red. Listening to him gave many of the proposals more meaning ashe provided many examples. I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical before he started speaking. He also had very good control of the time.

Once again, I've failed to lace up a new pair of shoes. Maybe I'll just wear them with laces tomorrow and run that way. Of course, I'm going to have to tie my chip to the laces then. Perhaps I'll just get up early tomorrow to do it.

80 RPM

Today was supposed to be a spinning class. But I didn't go. I opted to sleep for almost 2 more hours instead. I figured I could ride the stationary bike instead. And I did. At first, I was able to go about 22-23 mph with a cadence of between 80 and 90. But that lasted about 10 minutes. I got tired. I rode the next 10 minutes at 18-20 mph with a cadence of between 70 and 80. I had planned on a 30 minute ride. It didn't happen.