Remember the jubilation you felt at the age of about twelve when you went to your local arcade and after spending your months pocketmoney on that frustrating yet addictive game that got boring a few weeks back but which you couldn't let go, you finally seen your name, or indeed the three characters you used for your name, sit a top the high score list? Yes, I felt it again this week when I set a fastest segment time on Strava and this came after spending more than my monthly pocket money on a Garmin but long before the whole thing got boring. No comment on how frustrating it could have become or indeed how addictive it's getting.
I discovered this little segment the day after my first ride with the new Garmin. When I uploaded my ride to Strava it informed me I had passed through a pre-set segment of which I only managed the 25th best time of anyone to have gone through it and later uploaded their ride to the website. I figured the average speed was more than beatable for the 1.3 mile blast, though probably because it is along a park path frequented by families and dog walkers in which nobody who has ridden it has ever pressed it very hard. Than I came along.
A few days later I had a crack at it but misjudged the finish and stopped while still within the segment. Besides, the park path was littered with people out enjoying the beautiful weather and it was a game of dodge the obstacles rather than a straight race.
Then on Tuesday night I noticed the weather was cold, about 1 degrees Celcius, and figured, rightly as it turned out, that nobody would be out walking in the park this day. So I stuck on some warm riding gear and went out for a spin that would take in the park path. Now, you could call this extremely sad, pathetic even, but I need the exercise, I need to train and this beat going to sit in the gym for an hour. Yes, a cyclist sitting idol on a bike for an hour staring at a wall in front of him is in it's own right sad and pathetic.
There was a pretty stiff wind on the ride which I cursed the moment I turned into it and realised it was pointing against my direction through the path. I was hoping for a tail-wind that would allow me to cruise through the segment without raising my heart-rate over 130. Instead I was forced to actually push hard. So hard that my heart-rate jumped to almost maximum as I tried to hold a good speed over the 1.3 miles. You might criticise the requirement of such effort to beat a time by just 9 seconds, but I will remind you this was my third spin of the year and that I'm still trying to find a base level of cycling fitness. And yes, dare I mention that wind again.
So with that obsticle crossed I can now grow up again and get on with longer, steady rides in which I enjoy the world around me. At least until such times that I feel that emotion we all felt when we returned to the arcade the following weekend and noticed that some bugger had dethroned our high score putting us back to square one.
Post-ride weigh-in: 196.8 lbs
