First outdoor ride of 2009

You may have noticed the blog didn't update yesterday. Busy doing stuff around the house, and passed on the indoor ride because I knew I'd be outside today.

Slept horrible last night. I will be taking Julies advice and getting some Echinacea tomorrow. Maybe some Nyquil too. Maybe both together? We'll see. Yet I think the cold is slowing easing up. Well, except for the periodic coughing fits.

I hit the pool for the first time in what seemed like forever, and was a bit nervous about it. However, my inner shark twitched a little when he saw the fast lane had only the slow thrashy swimmer in it. I joined her, thinking that if I couldn't pass her often, I needed to rethink this whole thing. The break has done me good. My lungs still aren't clear, but I did a 20 min K relaxed and easy, never working too hard, not having to breath too hard. I think technique was good. My inner shark grooved, and every time we passed her he showed his teeth. She even stopped a few times at just the right times, which is new. And once, when she was on the pool boy, I just passed her. No smoking by. Her stroke is totally different when she's using the pool boy, and she goes considerably faster. Did some drill after, again, nice and easy. We'll call this .5 hr but it wasn't a hard workout by any means.

Dropped the car off for service, took the shuttle downtown, LRT, and bus home. Calgary transit sucks worse and worse. Last night I'd spent a bit of time getting my hybrid ready to ride. I haven't ridden it since the crash last year. All winter I've been taking Estela up and down the stairs and tucking her into the trunk of the car for spin class. Carrying the hybrid upstairs just about gave me a hernia. Heavy.

Got the seat height adjusted and set off back to the NE, not far from the old office location. Roads were wet in lots of places so I got covered with muddy water. Lots of gravel to be careful about. Was wary of the speed traps on the bike paths. Yes, in addition to plowing some bike paths, they put bylaw officers with radar guns on the bike paths. The speed limit is 20 Kph, which is a joke for any serious cyclist. In fairness, there are places where even that speed is much too fast, with blind corners, or narrow bits under bridges. Watched a nasty drug deal go down. Yeah, the bike path goes through some rough bits, but mostly they are smart enough not to bother the citizens.

The weather was ok, sunny and about 7 C so I dressed for it, and was just fine. The ride was about 1.5 hr, mostly just riding along at a good pace, mostly trying to behave like a slow car. I did a couple sprints to beat lights, did a hard hill climb at one point when I found out I can't get onto my smallest chainring. I didn't bother with a heart rate monitor, or setting the bike computer so I'd know Km and average and all that. I know from rides last year it's probably just under 30Km.

A hint. Tomorrow's activities will involve wine. I will take photos. Unless something happens to change things.