Blogslack

Haven't had time to post lately. Too busy with work and fun and every other damn thing....
Brief Recap of Recent Events:

Raced the bike leg of the Peaks to Prarie Triathlon.
Super fun. Basically a long slightly downhill time trial.

Rode mtn bikes out in Three Forks with Ciaran and Mike H. Went 38 MPH on the downhill singletrack at one point. Sweet!

Raced my first Tuesday Night Training Series road bike race and got killed.
Ouch. Old men and fast women passed me. Raced from near town to up past Bridger Bowl. Cool to race with a group, or at least for the 20 minutes I stuck with the pack.

Going to race this weekend near Great Falls at the Belt Creek Omnium.
Probably gonna get killed again.

Later,
L train

Employee Ski Day

The boss at work decided that he would take everyone skiing at Bridger Bowl yesterday. I had a great day, and rode more laps that I have in a long time at the hill. I rode from 9 when the lifts opened until 330 I think. One hour break for lunch and the rest was riding time. It was really fun. I spent most of the day with Mark and Miles who I work with. We pretty much stuck to Pierre's Knob and did a lot of cruising in the trees. Pretty mellow and fun. I brought the GPS and got a lot of paths out of it.

Data:
Time: 5:45
Max Speed: 41.9
Total Ascent/Descent: 26197 ft
Distance: 34.25 miles.

No wonder I fell asleep at 7:30!

The Ringing Rocks

For my Easter I went mountain biking. What a surprise! I went solo as all my riding friends were otherwise occupied. I just really needed to get outside for a while, and very often my Sunday routine is a solo pursuit of some sort. It is good to have a break from people and town and just be out in nature for a while. I think it recalibrates my spririt from the hectic workweek down to a more natural relaxed state. The slow rhythms of the wind and the sky and the sun. . .
I cruised around in a new area near Pipestone and explored the whole lower area and ended up at the Ringing Rocks. I didn't ring them but apparently they make a neat sound when you whack them. It was a big pile of red boulders and looked totally manmade but is totally natural.

Ride Data courtesy my Garmin 305. I can export the data to Google Earth, as you can see above. Pretty sweet!

Time: 1:41
Distance: 12.47 miles
Avg HR: 147
Max HR: 173
Total Ascent/Descent: 2268 ft

Athletic Fact of the Day

Miguel Indurain, a cyclist and five times Tour de France winner, had a resting heart rate of 28 beats per minute, one of the lowest ever recorded in a healthy human.

Datafest

I got home today from work and there was a box waiting for me patiently by the front door. I opened it when I got inside and there sat my new Garmin GPS unit. I had to charge it before using it so I plugged it into the wall and then went to pick up my KLR at the motorcycle shop after it's spring service. I got new handlebars to replace the my bent old ones, and Progressive fork springs. Holy crap do those springs make a difference! At the first stop I immediately noticed how I didn't have a ton of fork dive when I used the front brake. The bike for the first time felt balanced front and rear, somewhat firm at each end, instead of being excessively mushy in front. It just stabilized the whole ride, no rocking back and forth, it just felt way more solid on the road. It was cold and windy but I had to go rally around the dirt roads for a bit before going home. For about 100 bucks I don't think there is a better upgrade for that bike.

I got the GPS running and then got myself running, literally, to test it out. A half hour later I plugged the thing into my computer, and got the data into the Garmin program, and saw all kinds of neat stuff: graphs, numbers, little maps, oh boy!! Data: 2.5 miles, Avg heart rate 152, Max HR 178 (I sprinted for a bit to see what would happen), and a cool map of my route. I found an option to export data to Google Earth, but that will have to wait till tomorrow, as I have to go to bed. The damn thing seems to work though!