July 18: Pretty tired today so I just took the day off of cardiovascular exercises. I did do some resistance stuff again, today working upper back, core and shoulders. Hey, this is the shortest blog yet!

July 19: Did a ride with Bill and Judy. Total ride time was 2:45 hours. My intention was to go long (still a relative term to suggest longer than advised), and therefore below my target zone. But sometimes intentions go awry. Started off pretty good for the first hour, keeping it well under my target zone. Then things got a little quicker for the remainder of the ride, where I got up into the middle of the zone, to the top of the zone, to above the zone.

I am getting a bit better with the hydrating part of this. What I’m doing right now is filling one bottle with a Gatorade mix and the other bottle with water, then I put them in the freezer for about an hour. That way I really enjoy drinking ice cold water or electrolyte when out of the bike. Just makes me drink more often. And I’m finishing that first bottle in less than an hour. Such was the case today where I finished that electrolyte bottle under an hour in. 

So when we turned around this goober in tennis shoes just flies by us. And it was like, I was ok with that…if not for the fact that the dude just kept looking back at us to see if he was gaining on us. I mean he was a freaking swivel head for God’s sake. That kind of irked me. I’m good getting passed by people at this point of my life - even on the bike and hike trail - even by a dude in tennis shoes. But shit, just go about your way rather than worry about whether or not you’re gaining on me, or staying ahead of me by looking back all the time. Really, you’d swear the guy was on a solo breakaway or something. 

Well, I commented to Bill about the dude and Bill just stepped it up, with me just jumping in on the draft. Passed goober in no time and then backed off to wait for Judy. So Judy gets back on and the goober dude did it again, then started looking back every minute. This time I picked the pace up, then Bill jumped up ahead and did a pretty awesome pull. Now we’re on fixies so there’s only so much cadence and speed you can generate, and I think Bill was at that point end point. Now my HR was above the target high end by about 5bpm, so I was ok, just digging on the draft.

So Bill finally pulled off and I kind of felt obligated to do something, so I did about a mile pull, where I probably went like 10bpm above my target high. Felt good, but I backed it off soon thereafter just to stay on the safe side. I’ve got enough already to discuss with my cardiologist, I don’t want to be a total ass and throw in something about a 10-15 minute pull way above my target HR. 

Waited for Judy again, and then eventually the goober slinked on through. From there onward I just tried to keep everything in my target zone and not let testosterone take over. Felt really, really good at the end of the ride though. I know I was a bad boy, but wow, did I feel good! Got home, worked for a bit then did a resistance workout for chest and arms. I guess it was a good idea to take yesterday off!