Do Vitual Riders Take Electronic Dope?

Probably should have gotten outside and road today, but couldn’t manage it.  Road the Expresso.net bikes down at the rec. center.  Did the Vindicator route under the difficult rides.  Averaged 170 watts and 160 bpm.  The little electronic pace rider passed my just at the end.  I think he is doping.

Aerobics Instructors Should Not Teach Spinning

As a general rule, I believe cyclist are a quite people.  Not so much by nature, but by necessity.   When you’re riding hard, wasting your breath on needless conversation is a luxury.   One that I certainly can’t afford.  That’s why it seemed rather disconcerting to have a spinning instructor (but mainly an aerobics instructor) who ran class like an aerobics class -constant talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.  Save the conversation for the post ride beer.

HTFU

HTFU – that is my new mantra.
I’ve been working on getting ‘it’ all together over the last month or so. By ‘it’, I mean I’ve made a conscience effort to identify my goals in life and work up a plan to accomplish them. That said, I haven’t been able to get everything firing on all cylinders all at the same time. I can get most things going, but there is always one or two things (usually diet and exercise) that get left by the wayside. I’ve entertained the possibility that I’ve taken on too much, but I don’t think that is it. It mostly seems to be laziness or some bad habits I can’t seem to break myself of. To over come this hurdle, I’m taking a page from the Stuart O’Grady book of motivation. He bought black wrist bands for his team one year during the Tour de France. They had four letters on them HTFU. I’ll let you google it yourself. Well if you will excuse me, I need to HTFU and get my ass to spin class.

Blah, Blah, Blah

I went to spinning Monday night.  There was a girl (I do mean girl – she looked like she was in that awkward early teen stage of life) that was really starting to get on my nerves. She talked endlessly and not about anything interesting. I just wanted to tell her to shut up.  I feel a little conflicted though.  A few weeks ago, there were a couple of women who walked out over the instructor’s music selection. Some of her music had a strongly implied sexual theme – one of those songs that sounds very sexual until you actually listen to the lyrics. I guess these two women found that offensive. I remember thinking at the time that if they are paying that much attention to the lyrics, they aren’t working hard enough. Another class tonight, guess it is time for me to work harder.

Heartbeat City Here We Come

Went to spinning class with my new heart rate guidelines taped to the back of my ipod.  The minimums were pretty easy to reach.  I hit 130 bpm just as class started and once I got over 137 never went back until class ended. My average heart rate was 150 bpm (82% of MHR) and I hit 171 (93% of MHR) at one point.  Previously, my highest average was 144 bpm.  Some of my other guidelines were harder to reach. Often it was a matter of what the instructor dictates, but spent a good portion of the class riding at about 85%.

The return of the spinning class

Went back to spinning this week.  It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.  I’ve only ridden a couple times since October and I was worried.  Monday was my one year annivesry in spinning.  I remeber during my first spinning class, there was the very real possibility of throwing up toward the end.  This time  I got by with a slightly higher pulse rate than usual.

Monday’s class wasn’t as busy as I expected – only 10 of us.  Wednesday, was different.  The resolutioners (as in New Years) were back in full force.  The class only killed one or two.