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06-25-04, 09:43 AM
This morning my 2.5 year old daughter climbed into bed with us and literally kicked me out of bed. Since it was earlier than usual, I decided to use this rare "alone" time to watch the OLN show around Lance's 5 TDF victories while eating my cereals...
I don't know if it was the earlier time, the new cereals or just watching him push hard on the time trials, but the second I jumped on my bike, I had only one thought in mind: Today is the day I am going to break the 30mins barrier. I have never ever done better than 32:43 on my way to work, and my best coming home was 30:33. For a 9 miles commute in the city, fighting traffic, potholes and jaywalkers, my average speed this month is about 16 mph. As a reference, I took me 45 mins to do this by subway and about 30 ins by car (on a good day!) ....
So I was inspired... I kicked things up from the start and never let up... all the way till the end. I hit the lights at the right time, chose the right side when passing cars and found the perfect gear combination on the bridge (my only *climb*)... I watched my HRM, my average speed and the stopwatch.
I made it all the way to the office in 28:03.... average speed, 19.2 mph.
Now, I know I will look back at these numbers a day, a week or a month from now and find that they were not that great... but I remember not so long ago when I first made the trip on my old junker MTB in 50 minutes and was so darn proud. Then for the longest time on my hybrid, I had this voice on the back of my head saying, "anything under 40 minutes is good". Now with the road bike, another milestone has been achieved.
I am so darn proud I had to shout it to the world.
28:03!!!... yeah!!... ok what's next ? dare I say under 25:00 ??
I don't know if it was the earlier time, the new cereals or just watching him push hard on the time trials, but the second I jumped on my bike, I had only one thought in mind: Today is the day I am going to break the 30mins barrier. I have never ever done better than 32:43 on my way to work, and my best coming home was 30:33. For a 9 miles commute in the city, fighting traffic, potholes and jaywalkers, my average speed this month is about 16 mph. As a reference, I took me 45 mins to do this by subway and about 30 ins by car (on a good day!) ....
So I was inspired... I kicked things up from the start and never let up... all the way till the end. I hit the lights at the right time, chose the right side when passing cars and found the perfect gear combination on the bridge (my only *climb*)... I watched my HRM, my average speed and the stopwatch.
I made it all the way to the office in 28:03.... average speed, 19.2 mph.
Now, I know I will look back at these numbers a day, a week or a month from now and find that they were not that great... but I remember not so long ago when I first made the trip on my old junker MTB in 50 minutes and was so darn proud. Then for the longest time on my hybrid, I had this voice on the back of my head saying, "anything under 40 minutes is good". Now with the road bike, another milestone has been achieved.
I am so darn proud I had to shout it to the world.
28:03!!!... yeah!!... ok what's next ? dare I say under 25:00 ??