Thursday, April 02, 2009

Change I can believe in

What a difference a few weeks make. Tuesday evening was the first time I had ventured over to IL for a ride in 2 1/2 weeks. The last time I had been been over there, winter was still clinging desperately to the landscape. Most everything was still stark, and starkly bare.

Oh, how things had changed. I crossed the JB Bridge and looked to the farm field on the right as I normally do. As usual, when spring arrives, the field is at least half filled with standing water. Not so common was it's appearance. The water was reflecting a deep blue tint from the sky above. Just beyond the water was the bright green of freshly grown grass. As I drove down Bluff Rd to Valmeyer, the rocky bluffs shone bright white and showed off their shapes in a way I had never noticed. The evening sun gave the area very different look than it's morning appearance.

Thank goodness I enjoyed the scenery because 20 minutes into my warmup for the evening's workout I cut my tire and and had to limp 3 miles back to the car.

So, Wednesday, with a nice, fresh rear tire I made my way across the river again for yet another attempt at doing my planned 20 minute interval. Maybe I just wasn't as observant Tuesday evening the farm field just over the bridge not only had the blue and emerald green grass, but just beyond the grass was probably an acre at least of purple flowering ground clutter. Very nice.

The wind was blowing strongly out of the south at about 15mph for second day in a row. My long interval experience is lacking and I probably went out a little harder than I should. The burn set in after a couple minutes as I turned more directly into the wind. Ooof!

Just looking at the average speed is pretty depressing. A whopping sub 20mph average. Impressive, I know. My average power was 285 watts. I guess that is okay for 20 minutes. Kind of hard to know when you are just starting to measure that sort of thing. But, now there is a baseline and we'll go from there.

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