Distracted Blerhging

My body is better. My brain hurts.

I jumped at a chance to go to DuPont this weekend, despite the fact that my bike with the comfort device mounted to the front being temporarily out of commission.  Mebbe not such a bad idea, since I'm starting to lean towards the Vertigo Meatplow V.6 for Breck Epic.  Either because it's just how I do things or because it's just that much easier to get it to the top of the climbs.  Dunno.

Well, for me DuPont is a 32X19 kinda place, but...

I had a 32X18 still on there from all that greenway grinding I was doing while recovering from injury.

AND

If I was gonna take the time to do a cog swap, I'd wanna just toss the 20 on there to be ready for Breck (lazy), but the 20 I'd wanna use it at Bike Source on the Vassago Meatplow V.8.  Instead of doing anything, I did nothing.

The 18 wasn't too bad 95% of the time, but the 5% where it was... it was very.
 

Two things:

1. I found a new max heart rate. 186bpm coming up Cedar Rock. One of the reasons I got the Elemnt Bolt was to find this kinda stuff out.  What is my fifty year old body capable of and how much can I get out of it?

2. I may be getting closer to being "over" having a computer.  Sure, it's neato to find out that a "fun ride" can net 32 miles, almost 4,000 feet of climbing, and keep my heart rate up there in the red for almost 1/3 of the ride.  Knowing all that, I had no problem getting into the squeezy leg bags for 1.5 hours that night and taking the next day off the bike entirely.   Training at my age with plenty of years of "base miles" means intervals and (most importantly) allowing for decent recovery.  I'll call that ride "intervals" and mowing the lawn and spreading mulch on Sunday, "recovery."

That said, I should be smart enough to know that climbing up something like Burnt Mountain or the back of Cedar Rock on a single speed is gonna certainly put me in the red.  If I'm gettin' at it up Jim Branch or the Hickory Mountain Loop, same same.  It's definitely interval quality, but I should really know that already... although I just think I'm having fun or something.

I still haven't used it in a "race" yet tho.  I'm still not really considering Breck Epic a "race," because it's a duo effort.  That means we stick together, so I'll either be playing catch up, waiting, or riding together if possible.  It's not just me and the information robot on my handlebars.  After Breck, I only have one more "race" on my calendar (as of right now), and it's the kinda short Fonta Flora Barn Burner 50k.  Short enough that if I'm not hurting, I'm not going fast enough.  That said, it's in sorta late October.  I won't be in the greatest shape, so "fast enough" to hurt won't be all that fast.

Mebbe once I tire of all this information overload, I'll just sell the Elemnt and go back to using my not-so-smart Cateye that tells me the minimum amount of information I'd ever want; how far to the finish and how long have I been on the bike so I know how much I should have consumed so I don't bonk.

Dammit.

That's a whole lot of me thinking out loud about not really much at all.

Go back to doing whatever it was you were doing before this.