A 97 Year Old's Max Heart Rate

I felt about 95% today, which is to say the best I've felt in exactly one week. Thank God! I was this close (fingers pinched) to madness. My ass is made to be in the saddle. Seriously it is. There's a big saddle shaped scoop that allows me to ride more easily than most folks. OK, I'm kidding, but I know you know what I mean. I HAD to ride, EVEN if was just the trainer.

I picked up a new battery for my piece o'shit HR monitor today and replaced the strap's battery. Seems to have helped it pick up a signal a little better. I have to admit as soon as I got home I snuck the Big Mama out the front door for a 2 minute helmetless jeans and Vans ride up to the next block and back to see how she felt. Felt nice, REAL nice. But I had real work to do, and needed to get chamoised up for time on the trainer.

Tonight's plan was to ease the legs back to the bike with an hour of higher cadence small chain ring stuff. I did a variation of what I call "iPod Intervals". Start in 34/25 and drop a gear each time a new song comes on. I would normal start in 34/25 down then back up then switch to the 50 and repeat. But tonight was just the 34.

Not sure if it was the monitor or what, but I was having real trouble getting my heart rate up. Legs felt great, body felt great (except for a couple coughing spells) but my average heart rate for 1:15 of riding was like that of a sedentary 97 year old man. Strange.

Lots of folks recommended monitors to me yesterday, I went with the battery swap. My days on the trainer are numbered and that's the only time/place I really use one. Never use them in races, and if use one during rides, it's just for shits, giggles, stop watch and calories burned. I have enough going on during a ride or race the last thing I need to do is be looking at numbers that I can do very little to control.

Mamasita shipped out today, the Reba goes tomorrow. I guess I need to pay for some of Big Mama's parts! Now that I have the Big Mama taken care of, I need to get my shit together for the Dos Niner's 2009 upgrades. Some of which won't happen until the SRAM goodies come it, but some can start- the XTR crank needs to go on, Ignitors on the Stan's wheels, etc., Fun shit!

My days as an employed member of society have entered the single digits. 9 more to go. This will either be the best thing I've ever done, or the dumbest thing I've ever done. Not sure. Everyone tells me I'm doing the right thing, I just need to focus on the positives, because on paper the positives far outweigh the negatives.

Now to leave you with this. This was played at a live BBC radio performance last week. When I heard it I got goose bumps all over. I feared I was gonna stroke out.



It's not right that after 37 years, music has such and effect on me. Oh, the songs that saved our lives...

Later.