Going Places, New Faces

I guess my working out is starting to show the beginnings of dividends. Today I went and rode two laps at Rosaryville SP. The first lap was done in 1h:9m and the 2nd was 1h:11 min according to my cyclecomp. The GPS is a bit off as my first lap I didn't start it till almost a mile in. IN distance I got a measurement of 18.8 or so. I finished the entire ride in less than 2:30 which is pretty impressive to me as stops used to take me much longer. Basically I stopped once on each lap to eat a GU and then had to walk across 2 log sets. The final lap i did end up pushing the last hill but much better than my first ride where thats what I did that final hill on 1 lap. Once I got going and warmed up I felt decent only after mile 15 or so did the tiredness catch up a bit. Gotta continue to push myself for more endurance I guess. Met a guy in the lot there for his first ride, Mark. I let him lead off, caught him on the bastard climb before mile 4. I lead up till about 5 or so and let him pass. And he was gone...heheh. I coulda tried to keep up more but oh well, he said he only beat me to the lot by about 3 minutes. He ended after 1 loop. Cool guy.

At the gym, I am pushing myself more. Doing my A circuit a lot but working in bits of C also. B sucks, as often when I'm there the main room is in use and I can't use it. Oh well. I'm doing much better on push ups, my pull ups are up to 6. I did some box jumps yesterdya and they didn't seem to leave me in bad shape for today. Saturday I rode for an hour. Sunday I walked for half an hour, hoping to ride today.

Tommorow, I will probably try and do a full circuit of A again. We'll see.

Woot for Nice Weather!

Thank the weather god for nice weather returning to DC. I was going stircrazy in general, and especially in wanting to hit some trails on my Sunday/Monday days off. Well the weather was nice, traffic wasn't too bad and so I've officially opened my cycling season (EastCoastStyle) as of Friday April 20.

I got home re-kitted out the bike, my car and myself and drove to my launch point a mile or so away from teh WOD Trail. I bombed the steps down from McAuthur Blvd near the bridge down to the trail only having to walk the 3 worst steps (GRRR!). A few adjustments later I was off down the trail. My pace at first was a nice and solid 17 or so till almost little falls. I let up a bit then and averaged down to 15 slowly by the time I hit George Town. A quick stretch break and I was headed back. I dropped down to the capital cresent and hauled ass back up the trail following some roadies, holding 17-18 for a while. A detour to Little Falls went for about 10-15 minutes of wheelie practice. Some of my better wheelies. Still can't go as far/fast as I want. But it was better. I need to work on my 1/4 crank and balance drills a bit. A quick rest stop and it was back up the rest of the way. 16.5 miles round trip in about an hour 10. Nice ride and felt pretty good.

Soon I will start loading my rides from the GPS data to Motion Based but the basic tool from Garmin isn't bad I just wish it's mapping was better (Overlay onto perhaps googlemaps instead of its own). My heart rate was solidly in zone 4 for most of the ride so I'm pleased again. (Vs when I went spinning for the first time Wednesday and was in oh zone 5 the whole frickin time).
Being able to watch my cadence/hr when riding especially on flats is very good for my training goals currently.