I am NOT the gadget person of the house. But, I have a gadget that I just can’t live (or bike) without! It’s my heart rate monitor. I wear it when I walk the dogs so that I can fool myself into believing that I’m actually exercising (instead of ambling through the neighborhood, tied to two noses on four legs). I wear it to yoga so that I can be very impressed with how my heart rate slows waaaaay down in shivasana. And I wear it on my bike rides so I can justify eating whatever I darned well please for the rest of the day!
The monitor is set to beep slowly when I am working under my cardio zone and it beeps faster when I am working over my cardio zone. Today we headed into the hills waaay west of town in Columbus, Texas. It was just Stephen and me because the kids had another band commitment (we’re hoping this is the last ride they’ll miss!). The ride began pretty tight and I got nervous amongst all the riders. (Beepbeepbeepbeepbeep!) So, I hung back until the crowd thinned out a bit. Stephen waited for me about 5 miles out. It was really hard to stay together for the rest of the ride, however. The hills came on fast and furiously!
There were lots of slow grinding hills before the first rest stop. I’m finally pretty comfortable with my shifting, so I felt pretty good going up the hills (and on one downhill I got up to 29.5 mph). Even so, for the most part, the heart rate monitor was either quiet (meaning I was working within my cardio zone) or it was beeping fast.
After the first rest stop I noticed that it was more often quiet or beep… beep… beep…beep…beep…beeping. It’s very satisfying to know when it’s quiet that I’m working efficiently. On the other hand, when I’m trying to slow down a bit after slogging up a hill, the slow beep…beep…beep…began to tick me off a bit! Although my knees were beginning to ache (and I can barely stand right now), I pushed through those hills and kept that darned thing quiet until the second rest stop. (Inexplicably 5 miles before the map said it would be.)
Some one had told me that the last leg of the ride only had a few hills, and I foolishly believed that I would be coasting most of the last 13-18 miles (depending on if the map had been wrong or if the route was actually shorter than 50 miles…guess which was true). Oh, how I would have loved to hear the beep…beep…beep…beep…, but instead, I heard silence and beepbeepbeepbeep. By the time we rolled into the finish line I was 50 miles worth of fried.
I rode down to the sign out area to sign us out. Stephen headed back to the car. After I signed out I couldn’t bear to get back on the bike, so I walked it back through the park and into the parking lot. As I approached the car, I glanced up and saw Stephen finishing up with the bike loading and thought to myself how sweet he was to have put my bike up on the rack for me…
Of course, it was the wrong car, the wrong man and I still had my bike with me… Bike brain!
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