Thursday, July 17, 2008

A Hill, and a new land speed record for Estela!

The road to Nepal has many hills. I picked one for my hill repeats. It's not the longest, and maybe not the steepest, but it was convenient, and besides, it looked like it was raining further south. This one starts where the Leighton Centre turns off, and ends at 274th or so. The hill is actually about .8 K long, and I don't know how much elevation.

The first time up the hill was nice and easy, then I pushed harder. I think the fastest I made it up was 5:30, but I had to do complicated math in my head for that number, since I didn't do any lap time stuff on my watch. It might have been a faster or slower. Of course going down was way quicker. Way, way quicker.

I think I did 7 times up the hill and back down again, but it might only be 6 times. I lost count. We all know how my brain shuts down for higher functions while I exercise. Next week I'll do lap times for up and down, although I might try a couple hills further down. Mostly the legs felt good, though I got a couple twinges in my calves. The strong headwinds going up didn't bug me since I was looking for a work out, and made going down faster. I used the downhills to spin up past 130 rpm and loosen up the legs. I only rode 50 minutes, giving up when it started to rain, and get some gusty cross winds.

Overall, a pretty nice night for a ride. Just as I was done I saw a few more riders. I really enjoyed getting out and pushing my legs a bit. Worked a bunch on trying to spin up the hill.

I've been told that this post is incomplete. That there's more to the story. Sigh. The pressures I'm under here. Sheesh. This is how it goes. I have car keys with me, and attached house keys and stuff. It goes into the bento box. I come back to the car after my ride. Dig keys out of bento box. Open trunk. Drop keys back in bento box. (Note that it's cooling off, it's windy, it's starting to rain a bit, and I'm still coming down from the workout.) Take off front wheel. Put Estela in the trunk. Put front wheel in the trunk. Close trunk. Walk to driver's side door, reaching into my pocket for keys. Oops. Much bad language. Decide not to break a window. Walk to nearby house, borrowed phone. Linda laughs at me. She borrows neighbour's car and comes to get me. She is very suspicious that I have in fact fallen, strewed bits all over the road and broken my phone. Once she checks me over, opens the car, she shakes her head, and says "Only you!". I DON'T say "You married it!".

Here's some numbers:
22Kph overall average speed, which is pretty good, all things considered.
Average cadance was 70, again, higher than I thought it would be.
90.33 Kph max speed. Like I said, there was a pretty stiff wind, probably 35 Kph. I'm not sure which run generated that, since the fastest I actually saw on the computer was 89.5 Kph. I'm just thrilled to know I could have got a speeding ticket on a provincial secondary road.
155 max heart rate,
125 average heartrate.

5 comments:

  1. Woohoo! Way to go Keith!! Wouldn't that be priceless if you did get a speeding ticket? You'd have to frame that sucker. LOL!!

    What an awesome workout -- I am chomping at the bit to ride that road to Nepal -- I am going to have to come up soon!

    Great workout!!! I can't believe that you got over 90kph!! HAHAHAHAH!! YEEEEEHAAWWWWWW!!

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  2. awesome land speed record!!! can't wait till you update the blog about the later incident...

    it'll be easier if you just write about it rather than having me rat you out, tee hee.

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  3. muahahahaaaaaaa...

    i think linda would have laughed at the 'you married it' comment. tee hee.

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  4. Holy...that is fast on a bike when you are not wearing leathers...there go the shoulder blades should you wipe!!

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  5. he he he

    I finally road the Road to Nepal last weekend. That is one pretty piece or road!

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