Fun & Fitness over 50

OK. I gave it another shot.

This time I did a hard reset on my Berry by pulling the battery. When it came up the GPS was working. Great.

When I went out for a ride it was not working. So I did the GPS reset option from the software and it came on. Great.

I checked it at the turnaround point in the ride and it was still working and the time and mileage seemed accurate. Great.

I checked it when we got home at the end of the ride and it was not picking up a signal. What th...!!??

The bike computer said we did 6.98 miles but the gps had stopped logging at 5.6 or something.

Technology is wonderful when it works but when it doesn't it just adds complexity and aggravation to something that is supposed to be simple and relaxing.

I should just wait until I can get a "real" GPS. Then I'll be happy. Yeah, that's the ticket!

On my GPS, that is. It's not even a real GPS. It's a GPS enabled phone.

I couldn't get the GPS to go on for today's ride. I tried the 'reset GPS' option in the software but it didn't do anything.

I don't need the frustration.

After I got back, I reset the berry by pulling out the battery and now the GPS works.

OK, one more time.

On another note, I'm now up to 926th place (out of 10,211) in the LeTour Challenge.

I really should have taken the day off 'cause I'm kind of sore. I rode every day since last Sunday. I rode for 2-1/2 hours today, 31 miles. I told myself I would take it easy. I kind of did but there were are few hills. Can't help that!

It was pretty nice, mostly quiet. Big T-storms promised for later.

At one point I happened to look up and saw a puff of smoke in the sky and then a silver thing falling straight down out of the smoke. Uh-oh, that can't be good. I was hoping it was some model rocket or something cause it was right over South Bethlehem airport.

A little later I saw these jets flying around pretty low and realized it was an airshow. Then I saw 2 of the jets crash into each other! ....

Pieces flying all over the place .... and fluttering to the ground! They were models! I never knew they had such a thing as model jets. They even sounded like the real thing. Incredible! The things you see on a bike ride!

I stopped for a Clif bar break about 1/2 way and hooked my sun glasses under my saddle, telling myself "don't forget them, now". HA! I forgot them, of course. Until about 5 miles down the line. Of course they were long gone.

I did this once before. Boy was I mad (at myself). You should have heard me. (Well, maybe it's better that you didn't).

Anyhow after the ride I went back with the car 'cause I knew where I stopped and they were right there. That was good cause I didn't have to do a lot of looking and they were off the road where no car could run over them or it was unlikely that someone would see them and pick them up.

Next time they go in the jersey or you can kick me!

Here's the route:

In the LeTour Challenge (mapmyride) that is. Out of 9,425.

Not bad!

I used my Blackberry's GPS to automatically log the ride. Mapmyride provides iMapMyRide software which works with the BB's built-in GPS.

Pretty cool when it works ... which hasn't been often.

Sometimes it blows up with an "unhandled exception". Today it worked. I wiped the BB and reprovisioned it 'cause it was acting up. Also, I found that if the GPS doesn't work, there is an option in the software to restart it.

Anyhow, it worked swimmingly today and it's very convenient. Automatically enters you in the LeTour Challenge too. So far, I haven't missed riding a day of the tour. See how long I can keep it up!

It's not for physical exertion but just for time and weather and things like that.

Today I rode after work and before supper. A great ride with great weather. I rode up Orchard Hill ... it seemed easy so I pushed a little harder. Then on top, on Bullock road was just gorgeous. Totally tree-lined in the shade. Beautiful.

I'm feeling really charged up. I'm sure it has to do with riding every day! There's something to it.

Here's today's route for interested locals (15 miles):

MapMyRide website is running an event "LeTour Challenge" to coincide with The Tour de France.

The idea is that you ride each day of the tour de france that you can. Submit your route and time to the website and be ranked as if you rode with the real tour and be entered to win prizes given out after each stage.

The prizes range from a couple of high-end bikes to water bottles. But it's really mostly fun to be motivated to ride every day. So far I have and my current ranking is 1,024! A nice computer science kind of number!

We've had unsettled weather with some real heavy downpours every day for the last couple of weeks but I've done pretty well avoiding them.

Tonight's ride was terrific. It had just rained and the roads were wet but the sun was out and it was cool. I usually ride just about 1 hour before supper but today I rode 20 miles in 1-1/2 hours after supper.

Just what the doctor ordered! :-)

This morning I was feeling really groggy. Didn't sleep any worse than usual (which hasn't been great)so I don't know why.

So I bagged my morning ride. I was going to take a recovery ride 'cause I rode pretty hard on Sunday and was feeling sore. Too bad because it turned out to be a beautiful, cool morning.

I felt pretty groggy all day as it turned out. Put away quite a bit of coffee but it didn't really help.

I decided that if the weather held out (tstorms predicted for later in the afternoon) I would take my 1 hour recovery ride on a mostly flat (for around here) course. I really felt like taking a nap when i got home but i didn't think an easy ride would hurt and i could always knap later.

So I rode about 4. And I felt great, of course! Never did need the nap. If I had gone for the morning ride I probably wouldn't have had to suffer through the day! I should know that by now!

OK. My goals for Monday's ride were modest:keep cadence above 80, keep HR in zone 3 (70-80%MHR) as much as possible. Zone 3 is supposedly where you burn the most fat. Of course, any exertion uses calories so that's good, right? I'm trying to get my weight back down after it crept up a bit over the winter.

While I had trouble keeping my HR up there, I did average 83RPMs. Out of 55 minutes, only 9 were in zone 3. I felt I was working fairly hard. I didn't sleep very well the previous night. Maybe that was it.

On the other hand, my average speed was 14.3MPH so I'm happy about that. I'm trying to work that up a bit this year.

Overall, I was satisfied with that ride. While I do want to get faster and be able to climb better, my primary goals are general health and energy. So if I can aim to ride as near to every day as possible, that would be cool with me.

Last night I didn't get enough sleep again so even though it's a beautiful morning I'm going to skip the ride and try to rest. I have a day of training at work and I need to stay awake!

Finally, I'm sore.

I've been frustrated that I haven't been having good, hard rides that leave me feeling sore in the calves and quads right away.

Today was one such ride.

I rode with Charles as I am wont to do on Sunday afternoons.

It's always good riding with Charles cause he usually picks a good hill which I might avoid on my own and the friendly "co-optition" gets me hammering. Either from me trying to keep up with him or me trying to blast past him or ride as hard as I can when I am "pulling" in front. Also, trying to keep as high a cadence as possible, even on the upgrades, helps.

We rode from my house down to Feura Bush and then out to the cell phone towers ("it ain't over 'till the fat lady sings", I mean, "you go by the cell towers")on route 312, the Clarksville road. This was the hill that I was cursing Charles out last year for taking me on but it wasn't at all bad this year either because I knew what was coming and paced myself or I'm in much better shape (or experienced enough to know that "pain is the name of the game") or all of the above. But it was oh so much fun going down the other side especially when you've earned it!

'Nuff said. Here's da root!