Gadgets, Gimmicks, and Riding Your Guts Out

My brother just sent me a new 160 gig iPod and my old heart rate monitor. Totally exasperated with iTunes but thrilled to finally have my heart rate monitor on the same continent as my fat carcass, I’ll be going for some sort of epic bike ride in an hour or so. The weather here in Valencia is cooperating with a cloud-free sky and a thermometer that will reach 23 degrees this afternoon (that’s 73.4 for State-side folks). I had a hell of a time trying to import an audio book for the ride today. I will be listening to the robot version of Travesuras de la Niña Mala which I have just finished reading for the second time. It may seem a bit tedious to listen to a book that I have just finished reading—a book read by a computer at that—but I don’t have a lot of selection when it comes to books in Spanish. Any help in this area would be appreciated greatly.

I just got back from about a two hour ride. The heart rate monitor doesn’t lie: I ain’t exactly in the best shape of my life. Today’s ride certainly pointed me in the right direction. When you are looking at your heart rate display you can’t kid yourself that you are having a good ride when in fact you aren’t. I had a good ride today because I was constantly kicking myself in the ass to keep my heart rate in range. I really know when I have a great workout when after my ride I eat, take a shower, and then fall unconscious for 45 minutes and wake up feeling as good as the day I was born (that was a good day).

I tried to go for a maximum heart rate sprint but I wasn’t feeling it. First of all I need some clip-in pedals for my bike which I plan on buying next week. I don’t even feel safe pedaling all-out without clip-ins. I don’t feel my normal attachment to my bike. I will try again for a max heart rate ride on Monday. From your maximum heart rate you can start really judging your daily workouts. Some days you will try to maintain 80% of your max, other days less, but you need to know your max. It’s not like I’ve ever been too much of a geek about my bike rides by getting overly-technical, at least not in the past. I just rode my ass off. As I get older I realize that if I want to maintain a decent level of performance I need to train a bit smarter. Train smart or train stupid, there is no substitute for miles ridden. Gadgets and training gimmicks are fine but I never really needed a heart rate monitor to tell me I had a great ride (although it does help with motivation). Time to start racking up some hard kilometers.