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04-05-07, 09:20 PM
I turned 56 today. In keeping with the fine bf50+ tradition, I took off work an hour early so I could get my miles in before dark. I first did 30.1 miles solo, at an easy pace on the Joe Pool dam. I averaged 16.9 mph. I kept the pace easy because I knew I'd be hammering for the second half of the ride.
I then joined the Texas Wheels club ride for their Thursday evening ride. This ride is led by a 22-25 mph paceline that rides the hills south of Joe Pool Lake. I can hang with this kind of speed on the flats, but not on the hills. There is usually a slightly slower group that splits off and does a flatter route, and I join them, but there was no sign of that group tonight, so I just hung with the fast group until they dropped me like a rock on the first major hill. I ended up with 27.1 miles at a 19.1 mph average for this half of the ride, giving me 57.2 miles at a 17.9 mph average for the evening.
The bluebonnets are in full bloom in Texas right now, so it was very pretty scenery in these hills south of the DFW metroplex right now, and I enjoyed my birthday ride very much.
This was only my second ride since I got my Garmin Edge 305, and as anyone who has one can tell you, it is an impressive display when you get all your ride data uploaded to your computer, and you are looking at graphs of your heart rate, speed, and elevation for the ride, overlapped. Above those is either a map or totals and averages. Click any point on the graphs and the map will show the corresponding point on the route (so THAT'S where my heart rate kicked up so high). I can see how anyone doing serious training could really get into the science of this thing. It's a pretty neat toy, too.
I then joined the Texas Wheels club ride for their Thursday evening ride. This ride is led by a 22-25 mph paceline that rides the hills south of Joe Pool Lake. I can hang with this kind of speed on the flats, but not on the hills. There is usually a slightly slower group that splits off and does a flatter route, and I join them, but there was no sign of that group tonight, so I just hung with the fast group until they dropped me like a rock on the first major hill. I ended up with 27.1 miles at a 19.1 mph average for this half of the ride, giving me 57.2 miles at a 17.9 mph average for the evening.
The bluebonnets are in full bloom in Texas right now, so it was very pretty scenery in these hills south of the DFW metroplex right now, and I enjoyed my birthday ride very much.
This was only my second ride since I got my Garmin Edge 305, and as anyone who has one can tell you, it is an impressive display when you get all your ride data uploaded to your computer, and you are looking at graphs of your heart rate, speed, and elevation for the ride, overlapped. Above those is either a map or totals and averages. Click any point on the graphs and the map will show the corresponding point on the route (so THAT'S where my heart rate kicked up so high). I can see how anyone doing serious training could really get into the science of this thing. It's a pretty neat toy, too.