Damn winter!
All week long I’d been watching the forecast and hoping to do my long ride today outside. There was some snow/rain mid-week, but the forecast for the weekend was always cold, clear and windy. As of yesterday, it was expected to be in the low 30’s this morning with some strong winds, but clear and sunny. I went out this week and bought hand-warmers; I have all my other winter gear. I knew that if the winds were really as strong as predicted, I would be really cold, but I was also excited to get all the winter gear on and tough it out today for 60 miles. I was planning on riding to Prospect Park. One problem with riding today was that I was either going to go to Prospect Park or Central Park, and each of them is about five or six miles from home. That meant that once I headed out, unless it was really terrible, there wasn’t really going to be any turning back. Well, that was the plan…
This morning, I got up around 8, still relatively excited to get out and ride. But then, I looked outside. It was clear, and I could tell it was cold and windy, but I also saw that the street in front of our apartment was covered in a layer of ice and slush. Because University Place is probably less traveled than most of the roads I would be riding on, I could have hoped that the rest of my route would be clear, but, obviously there was no way to know that. Also, since no cars would have been driving in Prospect or Central Park this morning, my guess was that those roads could still be pretty bad. Getting all the gear on, riding through that ice and then just hoping that the Park would be clear wasn’t a gamble I really wanted to take. Bummer. I decided to wait a bit and see what happened. So, I took Charlie out for a walk and realized pretty quickly that riding outside would be dumb. It was bitter cold and the wind was strong. Also, an more importantly, there really was a lot of ice on the ground. It wasn’t worth the risk.
So, I finally set up the Crono with some cages and Elizabeth’s pedals and decided I would ride inside but make the best of it by riding half on my Felt and half on the Crono. And that’s what I did. I set up the living room and got to riding. I watched a bunch of stupid crap on TV. I finally watched the coverage of IMLP from 2006 (The coverage was pretty miserable, by the way. It was boring, even though the race seemed fairly exciting. The woman in the booth – I can’t remember who it was – had no energy and nothing to add. And, I couldn’t really get a sense of the course.) At 1:50, I stopped for a few minutes to re-fill water bottles and switch bikes. It was my first time on the Crono. It felt pretty good. Totally different feel than the Felt. I didn’t expect such a drastic difference. Way more comfortable when I was on the aerobars. It was strange trying to find another comfortable position. I was very glad to get on it though. Now, I just need to get on it OUTSIDE! Then, I watched “When We Were Kings” about Ali-Frazier in Zaire. I saw the movie in the theater when I was in law school, but it was fun to watch it again. About the same time that the movie ended I was finally done! The ride two weeks ago in Prospect Park was so much easier to get through. I hope I don’t have to do too many of those long rides outside.
Tomorrow I’m running a half marathon. I haven’t been running that much the last couple weeks and I’m pretty beat from today’s ride. At one point I had thought about going for a PR, but not any more. We’ll see how it goes.
Bike – January 20
Time: 3:30
Average heart rate: 119
Indoor ride