Tag Archives: bike

07282019 – Bike

Leave a reply

I relaxed in the morning, the hope had been to attend a bike demo event in the evening, but it became obvious that the weather wasn’t going to hold for that to occur. I went out shortly after breakfast and hit some dirt while it was still dry. It started sprinkling, but stopped pretty quickly. I started with Area 36 trails and realized pretty quickly that my tired pressure was too low so I took the exit and pumped them up at the Trailhead. Then I started over on the Area 36 trails and they felt much better! Then I headed to the Back 40 section. The Luce Line is stilled flooded and is better but still pretty high so my feet got wet. By the time that I finished that loop it was raining slightly. In the woods it was still pretty dry so I did the skinny loop that ends at 55. When I got there the ground was pretty wet, so I finished the loop and rode to the Conundrum trails. The dirt in the woods was still mostly dry, but by the end there were puddles in any area with tree cover so I ended the ride. I enjoyed the cool rain as I got home and washed the bike off.

8.96 miles in 1:17 and 3 segment PR’s.

07222019 – Bike

Leave a reply

I brought my Motobecane hoping to get a good ride in and knowing there weren’t any mountain bike trails and no obvious loops I decided to ride the road we were staying on and then next one over that kind of goes by the lake we were on. It ended up being a great ride almost all on gravel.

I rode to the end of Hungry Jack Road and there is a YMCA camp parking lot. To get to the actual camp you have to take a boat across the lake!  That seems kind of cool, they offer 8-40 day camp programs! I turned around and rode the 3 miles back to the paved Gunflint Trail and then rode east until I got to Clearwater Road. This was about a 5 mile road and it was quite hilly!  Several of the climbs almost brought me to a standstill! And one was quite long. I was pleased that I didn’t have to stop at all due to the hill. I stopped to take some pictures along the way. This was a beautiful ride with lots of lakes to look at.  The only animals I saw were some dogs!

When I got to the Clearwater Lake Entry I took a short break and some food and then turned around. On the way back I stopped less for pictures.

I climbed for a total of almost 1,300ft and did 19.59 miles in 1:51.

My at Clearwater Lake entry point

YMCA Camp Entry Point

A view of Bearskin Lake from the YMCA lot.

Bogheno Lake

07172019 – Bike & Swim

Leave a reply

Today was a tempo ride on the bike. I started off at a relaxed pace heading south. Today I used the 494 bridge to cross the Minnesota River to Mendota. From there I road the Big River Trail and crossed the Mississippi River on the 35E bridge and headed back towards Minneapolis on the trail next to Shepherd Rd. I crossed the Mississippi again at Lake Street and added a short cool down section to get back to my car. It was a nice ride.

I wasn’t 100% sure if the Big River Trail would be flooded or not, but the section I rode on was up off the water pretty far. So I didn’t have any troubles. I opted to ride on the bike trail instead of the potholed East River Road in St. Paul. It was humid but mid-70’s so not too bad. I ended with 18.5 miles in 1:11:14.

The threat of rain or a storm hung around all day and I wasn’t sure if we’d have swim lessons or lap swimming today. The storm broke apart and went around the metro so we got them in! I decided to do a ladder today. I did 50, 100, 150, 150, 100, 50, 25, 25. Then I did some drills I did 25 with closed fists, then 25 with only my right arm, 25 with only my left arm, and finished with 25 with closed fists. I’m doing better with bilateral breathing, but I think I’m not getting enough air when I turn to the right. After 100 yards I pretty much can’t do it. I swam a total of 750 yards.

07152019 – Bike

Leave a reply

Today was a max distance effort on the bike. After warming up it would be 3 minutes hard, 3 minutes easy for 60 minutes (so 10 rounds). The Vivoactive again handled this perfectly. I swapped out the battery in my sensor, hoping that would fix the computer, but no luck. Ugh. I need to look at it some more.

I headed towards Fort Snelling and crossed the Fort Snelling bridge. Fortunately, one of the 3 minutes rest ended just as I finished climbing the stairs from the bridge. Then back up the River Road all the way to Dinkytown bridge and back down the River Road. I only had to sit through one stop light and it was also a rest period, so no pausing the interval timers! The hill climbs were a mix of recovery and hard efforts. Just as I was starting an interval someone passed me ( I was on the road the whole time) and I tried to catch them but I never could. I was starting to gain and then we hit a smaller hill and I couldn’t sustain the effort any longer. Of course after my recovery he was gone.

St. Paul really needs to repave the road! So many potholes I kept worrying that I was going to hit one hard and wrong and either flip or bust my tire. I tried missing them, but wow some were hard to miss. They’ve repaved some of the trail, so hopefully that will be the next step. One of my intervals was down the big hill on campus from Franklin by the hospital! That was a nice easy hard interval! I also got some of the hard interval down to the Bohemian Flats!! But that also meant I had a hard interval while climbing back up to Franklin and that was a challenge for sure!

I was grateful for the rest interval, though it was still going uphill and I was on the road, so I couldn’t completely spin it out. I was taking the whole lane through some of the narrower sections and just as we were cresting the last little hill, some old guy in a PT Cruiser pulls up beside me and says that there is a bike lane right there. I told him that I was aware of that, but I was going too fast to ride on it. He said, well you aren’t right now. I thanked him for his support of my riding! And off he went. In case you were wondering, there is no law or rule that says you have to use the bike trails and the bike trails do have a 10mph speed limit on them. I can’t say for sure exactly how fast I was going and I should have asked him, but my slowest speed in that section was just around 9 mph. And there is no easy way to move back and forth between the two. The guy at least was polite about it!

My splits were all around .8 miles for 3 minutes. A total of about 15 miles during the 60 minute interval session.

The total ride was 18.4 in 1:15.

No swim lessons on Monday, so no lap swimming for me!

07112019 – Bike & Swim

Leave a reply

Today’s bike called for some interval work again. It is hard to know how far I can go in the time allotted. The kids have a 90 minute class, so I have just under that. I had forgotten that the bike computer wasn’t working until I started out again. It is not connecting the wireless sensors – probably just a battery. I took a risk and headed out toward the Midtown Greenway and was going to hit the lakes and back on Minnehaha Parkway. I was hoping that I’d finish the loop in time and actually did it with a little time to spare! The workout was 6 rounds of 2:00, 1:00, :30. Again the Vivoactive was great for this workout.

The only error was on that I created as I stopped the intervals a few times if I was sitting at a stop light waiting to cross the street. There are not a ton of street crossings, but they and some congested trail spaces came during intervals which was hard. I probably should have been riding on the roads instead of bike trails, due to my speed but that’s ok! I also missed that the path split and went under a bridge that I had to wait to cross the street on! Oops. It was a fun ride as I haven’t ridden that part in a good while. The Minnehaha Creek was still pretty high and the trail was flooded over at one point. But not too high, just enough to get you wet! I did switch over to the road between Nokomis and Hiawatha and then hit several lights, but I was pretty much done at that point.

I got 21 segment PR’s out 35 segments on Strava so that’s some good work! The actual interval distances were all over the place depending on where I was on the loop.

Total miles were 17 miles in 1:07.

Back to some lap swimming! Today was a lot less drama! No TV cameras. I accumulated 850 yards again doing some 50’s and 100’s and got in a couple of 150’s too. My bilateral breathing is getting better, but I start to get winded I go back to left sided breathing only and with every other stroke.