The last 10 km
Today was did a 90 km ride. As you can see from the graph, the first part was basically downhill and the second half... well... obviously, we had to get up to where we started:
This was a tough ride for me, maybe because I didn't sleep well last night and I was tired. We left at 6 a.m. and I got home at around 10:30 or so (we took a long break in the middle). For the first 80 km or so, I managed to hang on, but those last 10 km might as well have been 100. It was really hot (around 100° F) and we were just trudging along uphill at something like 20 kph. In that short distance, I managed to have a flat, to almost fall off my bike when stopping at a red light (I had clipped out, but I was so tired that I lost my balance while trying to put my feet down) and to drop my chain, which then got stuck (I didn't actually drop it while riding -- when I almost fell, I must have kicked it off the chain ring with my ankle, which now bears the mark of chain ring teeth). In short, it was one of those rides when all I could think was, "If I can finish this, I can do anything."
I've found a better way to save my route maps (so that the names of places on the way show up). Here's a map of the route we did today:
And so that you can get a better idea of where I actually am, here's a slightly bigger view of the area -- notice how close we are to Gaza (oh, and the red line on the right is the "Green Line" -- the "border" with the West Bank -- that's even closer than Gaza):
Now here's an interesting graph. Despite the heat and being exhausted, my heart rate wasn't at all elevated at the end of the ride. In fact, even the elevation (marked in red) had almost no affect on my heart rate, apart from drops in heart rate during longer downhill sections.
This seems really odd to me, as you'd think my heart would work harder as the ride gets harder. By the way, the big dip in heart rate just before the end is where my training partner (my favorite training partner) decided we were going to coast down the hill without pedaling. I don't normally do that, but at that point, I would have even been willing to just grab the back of a car and be pulled home.
The other thing that seems really odd is the fact that no matter what I do (and no matter what I'm actually looking at on my screen), I can't save the graph of the entire ride -- this graph ends about 5 km before the end of the ride. If anyone is using SportTracks and can explain why that is (note that I can see the graph of the entire ride in the program), please let me know!
This was a tough ride for me, maybe because I didn't sleep well last night and I was tired. We left at 6 a.m. and I got home at around 10:30 or so (we took a long break in the middle). For the first 80 km or so, I managed to hang on, but those last 10 km might as well have been 100. It was really hot (around 100° F) and we were just trudging along uphill at something like 20 kph. In that short distance, I managed to have a flat, to almost fall off my bike when stopping at a red light (I had clipped out, but I was so tired that I lost my balance while trying to put my feet down) and to drop my chain, which then got stuck (I didn't actually drop it while riding -- when I almost fell, I must have kicked it off the chain ring with my ankle, which now bears the mark of chain ring teeth). In short, it was one of those rides when all I could think was, "If I can finish this, I can do anything."
I've found a better way to save my route maps (so that the names of places on the way show up). Here's a map of the route we did today:
And so that you can get a better idea of where I actually am, here's a slightly bigger view of the area -- notice how close we are to Gaza (oh, and the red line on the right is the "Green Line" -- the "border" with the West Bank -- that's even closer than Gaza):
Now here's an interesting graph. Despite the heat and being exhausted, my heart rate wasn't at all elevated at the end of the ride. In fact, even the elevation (marked in red) had almost no affect on my heart rate, apart from drops in heart rate during longer downhill sections.
This seems really odd to me, as you'd think my heart would work harder as the ride gets harder. By the way, the big dip in heart rate just before the end is where my training partner (my favorite training partner) decided we were going to coast down the hill without pedaling. I don't normally do that, but at that point, I would have even been willing to just grab the back of a car and be pulled home.
The other thing that seems really odd is the fact that no matter what I do (and no matter what I'm actually looking at on my screen), I can't save the graph of the entire ride -- this graph ends about 5 km before the end of the ride. If anyone is using SportTracks and can explain why that is (note that I can see the graph of the entire ride in the program), please let me know!
posted by bari | 15:46
1 Comments:
Sounds like a good ride overall because you made it!! Yay! Thanks for stopping by my blog the other day. :-)
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