Tempo On The Tundra And The Sounds of....

Multiple layers of clothing, lobster gloves, winter shoes, a locked out Reba, a Mamasita and a Nano iPodious set to play The Sound Of The Smiths double CD means one thing- A cold as titz, 2 hour "sweet spot" tempo ride on the rail trail. In a perfect world I would have rode 3 to 4 hours of base and maybe hit some shitty back roads too. But when the temps are only going to be around 30, I'm lucky that I could force myself to do TWO hours. The above pic was the only one I was able to get off today. The battery was low in the digi-cam and the cold temps sucked it dry PDQ. Too bad too, because once the snow started, the frozen rail trail took on a pretty cool ghostly look.

There were NO other cyclist out today. Correction- there were a couple other ones out, but they were hunters using bikes to get further down into the "sticks" to satisfy their need to shoot guns and avoid the convenience of grocery store butchers. Nothing like a rider carrying a high powered rifle. One full suspension Huffy parked along the trail actually had a homemade camo paint job. I was cursing my camera for it's bad timing.

I was happy with the ride today. It was pretty much a Sweet Spot Training day. Holding the tempo steady in the 70% to 80% max HR range. It's funny when I was doing some Googling about the Sweet Spot I found a Sweet Spot training story from 2005 on Pez Cycling the ride the author describes was pretty much the EXACT sort of ride I did today. Even down to the "slushy sports drink".

I highly recommend reading the article if you are like me and are trying to squeeze a 10 to 12 hour training week into an available 6 to 8 hours. I think I've heard endurance freak Jason Hilimire (now of FasCat Coaching, AND the folks behind that Pez article ) preach the Sweet Spot Gospel before.

Once the snow started coming down things started to get a little colder. My hands were good for the first 1:20 or so. The Endura Lobster Mitts kicked ass, but it's like at the 1:21 mark my body said "enough is enough". The "headlights" came on, the fingers and toes started getting cold and I was rocking the "whe-tah-doh" face. What's a Whe-tah-doh Face™? That's what saying "Retard-O Face" sounds like when your cheeks are frozen to a point in which talking makes one sound mentally challenged.

I got finished before the snow started blowing too bad. Glad about that. I was cold enough, I didn't need to be wet on top of everything else. It was nice to be outside, off the trainer and burning a ton of calories. Even if it meant shivering for a good hour after the ride!

Musical blatherings....

I really enjoyed giving The Sound Of The Smiths a good listen. Like any good Smiths Apostle I already have all of the songs in their various formats. But I acquired the .mp3s a couple weeks ago to see if the "remastering" did anything. I couldn't really notice too big of a difference and that's fine by me. I'm not a huge fan of "remastering". I believe that the production of a CD plays a part in the telling of a the story of the band. If early stuff sounded flat or muffled it was probably that the band had no real cash for a quality studio and equipment. And there's something to be said for that. But that's a whole other blog.

It was nice to have all of the songs in one play list. This CD would be great for anyone who might not own any Smiths (to which I would be appalled!), lost their CD collection to a pissed off ex boy/girlfriend or sold their collection to finance a blossoming drug habit.

Time to make some dinner. White Trash Mexican or White Trash Italiano? Hmmmmmm.

Later.