Thanksgiving

I have a lot to be thankful for this year; a job, my family and my health, as for the actual day, we had an easy to prepare Thanksgiving dinner at home (thanks to Boston Market). Thanksgiving day was a small gathering of just our immediate family (wife, kids and my sister in law).

The day after I managed to get in a 1 hour bike ride, the weather wasn't too bad, sunny with temps in the low 30's and wind at around 10-11 mph.

That's my yearly total as of Nov. 28th

UPDATE: regarding my PolarTraining account, after a last attempt to contact Polar (with two different email addresses) I finally got a reply from them and now have access again to my account and all the data that was stored there.

On Sat. it was back to Transition for a RyJax (Spinning & Yoga) class. This week it was TT intervals to determine our power training zones.

Update on some previous posts

The http://becomeanmm.com site has some updates (or maybe options I didn't notice the first time), so I updated my m&m avatar.




Also, I've been getting some email with questions regarding the updated version of my steadicam bicycle mount. So within the next week or so I should have a new Instructables project posted with all the details plus some of the video that I shot over the summer.



Bicycle training progress. I mentioned before that I've been tracking my indoor cycling (on the trainer) on the POLAR website. Here's my 1st month progress report from their website (click on it for a larger view).

Putting the technology to work

To stay "bike fit" over the winter it all comes down to spending more time on my trainer, but indoor riding can be so boring, until now. I've posted about some of this before, but here's how it's all came together this winter.

First I needed to make it at least seem like I'm riding outside so; I used my bike mounted DV camera to tape a typical ride. Then I transfered the video (of an approximately 1 hour ride) to DVD. So now I plant my bike (on the trainer) in front of the TV and play the DVD of the ride during the exercise session.

Next I needed a training plan, so I used the site provided by Polar with their HR monitors/computers. The site allows you to schedule exercise type and enter all the data that the Polar computer collects during a ride: HR, cadence, speed, etc, for tracking your goals.

I already had the Cycleops Fluid trainers, now I have the video, the training plan, a training schedule and music on my iPod.

So far this year I've averaged 3 rides a week (Interval, Short and Long rides) for a total of approximately 148 miles. My training zone is between 125-148 with a resting HR of 56, not to bad for an old man.

If the snow melts and I have some free time I'm hoping to ride outside again soon.

Safe riding all.