Just Ride

This week is filled with a lot of recovery rides. Totally cool. Seems like a gift in a way. Riding a bike with the sole purpose of doing nothing. Recovery rides call for keeping my heart rate under zone 2, which for me is under 142 beats per minute. In the flats to rollers, that means I can still get up to a little over 20mph without moving the needle on the HRM above the governor limited 'redline.'

Tomorrow, I hope to 'just ride' a few miles with my good friend Scott Thompson as he begins his 400km brevet ride. Nope, I wrote 400km. Yep, that's 248 miles in one day. Scott's done several of these before, too. Why do you think his blog is called Ultra Scott? Last year, Ultra Scott completed the 248 miles in just under 20 hours. While I know Scott isn't usually focused on the speed of a ride, I'm sure he's looking to improve his time overall. Based on the weather forecast for the weekend, looks like he'll have favorable conditions for his effort.

If things go well, I'll roll out with him for the first hour and a half and then bid him well. I'd ride longer with him, but my son has a full slate of baseball and soccer tomorrow. Besides, I just need to ride a little, not a lot. I'm not going to deviate from my training, either. I can really feel my legs coming on now and I'm optimistic for some upcoming races. While I've been just riding this week, I have never felt stronger on the bike and I'm sure the best is yet to come. The good news is that the fun factor of being on the bike has never been higher.