The Saturday Evening Post

There were a lot of things going through my mind when I was thinking about today's blog. What to write...

I've been giving everyone a little slice of what I've been up to so far this spring, so why stop now. Well, first off, I hope everyone was able to get out and do a little extended training. It is Saturday, you know.

There were a group of riders doing some VO2 max testing today. Please post comments on how things went. Inquiring minds want to know!


As for me, I headed out to UM for the PT School's annual pancake breakfast, yum! This year they decided to run a 5K and I decided to do it. Now I haven't been running any kind of intensity, but I thought it about time to get off my @$$ and give it a try. My goal was to break 20 minutes, bon chance!

I got there in just enough time to register and jog from the church (breakfast site) to the campus oval. I'm moving a little more slowly these days...long story..wife...no more coffee...

Then it was, "Ready, Set, Go!" and we were off around the oval. But no one was racing. They were just jogging, so I decided to move to the front and push the pace (bad move #1). This was followed with the winner of the race passing me at, oh, mile 1. Then I was passed by #2 at the half way point, then by numbers 3 and 4 at mile 2. Damn, I say! See what happens when a cyclist tries to run a foot race and puts the hammer down too soon! Oh well, fifth place is okay for me and I made my goal of sub-20 mins with a final time of 19:46. Not my best 5K, but I did have an impressive first mile of about 5:30 something...Oops!

Good to see budding triathlete, Lisa, there to get in some hard miles. Kudos to you, girl! There were also several Tuesday night runners, notably Dean and Brian, both who beat me. Yeah, just get'em on the bike.

Afterwards was an awesome breakfast with lots of heart-healthy bacon and sausage. Back home to prep the road bike for workout #2, THE GROUP RIDE. Okay, many of you haven't even been out to ONE of the group rides. People! The group rides are there to make you better, stronger, faster! You know, six million dollar man stuff! Well this is how it went down...

We met at Le Petit Outre at high noon. We've started to meet here to give these guys a little exposure (like they need it!) They only have the best bread in town. Don't worry if you roll in to Bernice's, 'cause we can see you, and we'll all head out together. Here's what it looked like.

The decision was to head south into the Bitterroot and maybe to do some hills off of eastside hwy. We strolled out of Missoula at 14 mph, see not bad at all. After the Tour de Walmart (thanks for humoring me boys) we headed south on 93 towards the resort town of Lolo.

We kept the paceline going at tempo for most of the ride. I took out my baby today and since it doesn't have a computer yet, I decided to wear the Garmin 305. I don't normally do this, but found it really interesting after I got back and downloaded the stats. The ride today was exceptional. There were ZERO angry motorists, ONE woman (Nadia White), TWO counties traversed, and at least THREE big surges while going both down and back! It was also good to have some different scenery and get to chat with the other riders.

NRO was out in force again this weekend, with Josh, Shaun, Jeremy (hey, I thought he liked Orange?), Steve and Nadia. Hey Cat4 girls, you had better get dialed in on her, she's looking fit and riding well. FVV was representing too, with David, Dean, Kyle, Greg and myself, plus Jedi-in-training, Willie, so we were feeling alright. Helena/Oregonian, Jason was also there and contributed to the day's shredding.

So let me talk about the shredding. After my nice-n-easy lead out of town, the guys (and girl) put the hammer down as we headed out of town. Wow! Here I am tired and starting to get stiff from this morning's 5K and they want to hammer. Oh well. The ride lasted 2:42, averaged 19.3 mph and covered 52.0 miles per my Garmin.

And for those "technos" in the bunch, I spent 11 minutes in Zone 1, 54 minutes in Zone 2, 58 minutes in Zone 3, and 27 minutes in Zone 4. My max HR today was 169 bpm. We climbed a total of 2035 ft. today. Good job to all who made me hurt.

I really enjoyed riding with my teamies, hanging out with the NRO folks and sharing in the pain that is so unique to cycling. Adios!