Training Log Archive: cedarcreek

Large Loop north of home. Part of my "bike to work" route. I've been really dreading the part of Butler-Warren Rd (yes, it's a county-line road) north of Field Ertel Rd. It's two lane all the way to Tylersville, and I seriously would not attempt it during rush hour.

It wasn't that bad today (Sunday, just after noon). I hadn't planned to go north of Liberty Way, but the cheese fries at Putter's were calling my name. (My niece is obsessed with them, so I can send her photos and she's jealous.) So north to Bethany Rd, and west to Cincinnati-Dayton. Stayed just long enough for the fries, then south to Liberty Way, up to VOA park, around the paths in the park (for mapping on Open Street Map---some new stuff, but aerials are old old). Back west to Cox Rd, south to Dimmick West Chester Rd, east to McCauly, home by Groom Rd.

I picked a route with a bit more climb, for training, and wow, did it kick my butt. I had to go to a thing, and when I got home, it was so late. I hopped straight into the shower, then into the car. I barely made it. Felt really bad to arrive so close to the end.

This is exactly half of the work route, which is 82km. I'm going to have to do more long rides before the real thing. This kicked my butt today.

"Group Ride" where everyone bailed because of rain. I arrived late, and there were three riders plus me. Katy asked, "Do you have an extra helmet?", and I literally had just taken my old helmet out of my car. (I'm leaving it out---I will never again be asked for one, ever.) No helmet so one of the three bailed. So three riders, *including* me. Actually she texted that to me, because it was raining. I looked at the radar, and I was really hopeful. I have actual texts with timestamps that show I estimated we had 90 minutes of no rain, assuming no pop up showers. I felt it was a good bet because once a cell moves through, it seems like it's calm for a bit before the cells pop up. I'm sure I'm wrong, but I'm going by my observation of radar.

So, we started in Covington, rode across to Newport, across the Purple People Bridge and then east on 52 (!) to Lunken Field. There are bike paths there, quite nice and pretty long. We did a loop in Armleder where we saw an Indigo Bunting (OMG!, so cool).

The weather was not looking good as we headed back. It was still a while until sunset, but I sure wish I had a red light on my bike. I was wearing a fluorescent yellow-green high-vis shirt, so that was good. (The other two riders had red lights.)

My stupid GPS stopped recording mid-ride. I'm sure it's my fault. I guess I'm gonna have to download and read the manual. And maybe check for updates. I've had a couple non-responsive crashes where I had to remove the batteries to reset.

So. No rain, but two big flashes of lighting well off in front of us. Still a mile or two to the PP bridge. I was drafting, and that let us hammer (otherwise, I would have slowed us all down). We went up and over the bridge, onto the streets of Newport, and---I could hear it coming---ominous---rain. A really nice downpour. Up and over the Licking River Bridge, right turn---Katy has to navigate. Oh---and my brake pads SUCK when they're wet. I was scared I was going to blast a stop sign and get hit. I took it easy to minimize the risk.

Almost hit my car (no brakes, remember), and everyone just threw their bike in the car and left. Absolutely soaking wet. I drove home with my look cleats on (I could clutch okay, believe it or not, or I would have stopped to change). I'm gonna have a wet butt driving to work tomorrow.

Oh. We were out, I think, 2 hr 6 min. We had rain the last 5 or 8 minutes. So---Ugh. It didn't feel like that long, or I would have said something.

Also. Parts of the GPS track I drew with Topofusion. Not sure if it will display correctly. {Edit: It did some sort of time creation when I inserted points. Ignore the speed in the section with the linear heart rate increase (over a long time).

C • Enjoyed your biking logs 4

Forgot heart rate strap. Forgot to put it on---it was in the car. Ugh.

From the Monroe Outlet Malls to Franklin, Ohio along Union Rd. This is part of one of my "ride to work" routes. With this out-and-back, I think I did in about 21 miles all the climb for the entire 48 mile route. So---I still need to do a good, long ride of about 50 miles. I would probably risk it at this point. The remaining "on road" part of the route I want to do with as little traffic as possible. If I stop once or twice for a quick bite, I really think I can endure the 50 miles. Need gloves, though. I've been going without, and I get some numbness.

Again, I did okay with the climbs. Before the last part of the last big one, I stopped for a few minutes to eat a few Gu Chomps and drink about half a liter of water. The rest helped for sure. Again, as last week, my legs never shut down, so---good. I even added a little hill at the end along the "restaurant row" south of 63. I was good and tired, though.

It was a bit more trafficky than I like, but it wasn't bad.

Also went south at the start to the bridge construction on Butler-Warren Rd. It is passable if it hasn't rained much, but I will have to divert---too much hassle to cross with a bike. Almost certainly a muddy, wet-foot crossing.

This is the exact parking space I used. (New GPS glitches---let's hope the ride track survived.)

OCIN_Indian_Creek_Jun_2014_Course 5 - Splits

Out and back on Ky 8, River Rd, Mary Ingles Highway, from Ludlow to the western end of Ky8 and back. Gently rolling. This might be my longest ride so far this year (by a smidge), but it was a success because I didn't bonk. I was close. I was taking it really easy on the last few hills. But my legs never said, "Too much!" and shut down---They weathered on.

First ride with the OpenStreetMaps loaded onto the GPS. Very, very nice. Amazing. Essential? No. (Yes.)

Watched Jukola. Wow. Just Wow.

Rewatched, "The Big Uneasy". Still makes me shake my head.

C • Jukola 6

Event: Jukola 2014
 

Afterwork ride on the bike path between Franklin and Miamisburg. I started south of Franklin and went a little past Miamisburg plus the return trip. Turned around at a touch over 15km. Cannondale road bike. Wheels were noisy. Definitely need to retrue the wheels. The spokes might be on their last legs.

30km is 18.6miles. I was trying to ride at a comfortable HR and not push it too much. I was a little worn out at the end. I need to either move the saddle forward or find a shorter stem.

First time using my new GPS. It's an Oregon 600, which is a trail model with ANT+ and fitness functions. I need to download the free routable maps from OSM data. The preloaded map basically sucks. I actually purchased (and returned) an eTrex 20 and eTrex 30 before deciding to drop the big bucks on this one. And I went to REI and looked at an Edge 810 (?) for about thirty minutes before deciding to keep this one. It's got a better display than the 810, and it's touchscreen, which is way better than the eTrex models. It also seems reasonably fast, which is a personal pet peeve of mine regarding some older map-capable GPSs. My car's TomTom drives me crazy with the delayed response to inputs, but it keeps working.

Anyway, it seems to work. One thing---It's not awesome for multiple part workouts, like intervals. It's mostly for longer rides. It records a track whenever it is on, so you don't have to remember to press start and stop. But, I haven't figured out the way to download the tracks easily. My first attempt required trimming the gpx file from three earlier turn-ons in various locations. I think there is an automatic save feature that saves each day as a separate GPX file. I need to turn that on.

This is part of my "ride to work" route. This added 15km to the route I've traveled south from work. (I've ridden, at different times, the entire path from work to Franklin.) From Franklin south, it's all roads. Unless I wimp out and decide to take the Little Miami Bike Path, which adds about 14 miles (62 versus 48, I think).

In my 25-something years of working in Dayton, today was the first time I saw the former Mound DOE site. I've been through Miamisburg countless times, but never on the south side in the daylight. Go figure.

I saw a low-head dam upstream of a weird gate structure. Not sure what that was. Will check it out. {Power Station water exit. The water intake is on the high side of the dam.}

Walk to start of ARDF 80m race.

US 80m ARDF Championships at Blue Hills Reservation, near Milton, Mass.

Out of the corridor. When I heard 1, it confirmed my choice to head north from the start. The map extended very far west, to the ski slope and TV (?) antenna, but I knew the antenna was a source of interference, so the course had to be more north-south, to compensate for the shortened east-west dimension. Oh. There were only four transmitters. Luckily, the missing T was the one I was supposed to skip anyway.

Then, 2 came on. Loud. And west. Crap. Forget going north, need to get 2 first. So west it was.

The lack of a model event really hurt me here. After a cycle or two, number 2 was booming, and there wasn't much map (we were near an edge), so I decided to go off trail and just go straight at it. When I got it, I didn't quite know exactly where I was, but all I needed to do was go straight at 1 and find one of the strong N-S trails and Bob's your uncle. But it wasn't quite that easy. I never really located until I was really close to 1. This cost me a bit of time because I was bushwhacking, through kinda nice forest, but it was still slower than the trail.

Again, the lack of a model killed me. I thought I was close for three full cycles before I got there.

Leaving 1, I knew I needed 4 then 3. And it was a quick trail and road leg to 4. Again, model. Ugh.

Leaving 4, a bit of a bobble, almost deciding on a thick green route, but caught myself. Took a while to get close to 3. I was guessing that it was significantly beyond the finish, and again, the lack of a model kinda bit me. I wasn't too far past, though.

Total minutes (complete SWAG here) lost due to no model:
2: 3min
1: 10min* my fault, kinda, so let's give half to me: 5 min.
4: 4min
3: 5min

So---17 minutes---maybe---due to not being "calibrated" to an unknown transmitter. If I had know the foxO homing beacon was a Sunday-representative transmitter, I would have checked it out on Friday.

Not complaining---too much---others had the same disadvantage. I think doing the Thursday sprint event, with 10 full-power 80m Ts, would have been a great advantage over just doing the FoxO.

Wonderful, but too short, trip to Boston. I got a four pack of Spencer Trappist! w00t! (Don't ask---they're all spoken for. Sorry.)

{Edit: Looking at the track from 2 to 1, I totally kept getting pulled north rather than sort of 20 or 30 degrees. Ugh. Explains why the trails didn't make sense.}

2m ARDF (US ARDF Championships) at Breakheart Reservation, in Wakefield, Mass.

Third. Got a reasonable order, but it was completely on wits alone. It was really hard to get a good idea of the entire layout, so I just made choices based on partial information and a guess or two.

My order was 2431, and either that or 2413 was ideal. I'm guessing 2413, but I don't really know how anyone could have known the proper order. I went reasonably close to 1 without realizing how close it was. I missed 5 pretty much completely (but I didn't have to get it)---I went by it very close and didn't have a signal strong enough to know exactly where it was. Later, I had the signal from across a lake, and it seemed as if it was on my side, not across the lake, where it actually was. It didn't mess me up because I didn't need it, but it was luck, I think, that it didn't.

Really nice day. A bit hot. I left it all out there. I was stumbling and starting to slow down on the way to the finish.

Foxoring (Fox O) at Lynn Woods in Lynn, Mass. We started on the east entrance, and finished at the south. Was supposed to get all 10 transmitters, but decided to save my energy for tomorrow's 2m event. Navigated to 7 circles, but only got 6 because one T was not working. I also misunderstood the time limit. I thought it was 120 minutes, but it was actually 150. I don't think it would have mattered much.

A really different course from what I've done in the past. This was score-style, not point-to-point. I'm assuming this is the way it's done in Europe. I am a student of score-style setting, not that I'm any good at it, but this stood out to me as a score course where the best route was very difficult to figure out. There were many "confounding" controls that prevented an obvious loop. It was very triangular, with most of the circles having multiple, but pseudo-equidistant neighbors. (I'll try to link to a map later.)

Kinda worn out. Already showered, but time to eat.

Event: FallsQuest 4 hour urban foot score event
 

Event: FallsQuest 3 hour urban bicycle score event