3 hours / 55 miles

ok...I'm still trying to get the hang of this blog thing...so bear with me on the formatting. Today was...well...here is what today was like: After getting one of the cars serviced, getting as much work as I could stand to do done..I finally got out the door at 1:15. On tap : 3 hr ride almost all @ AeT. AeT stands for aerobic threshold...usually about 20 beats per minute below lactate threshold heart rate or about 65% of CP30 power. Training at this intensity is extremely efficient at developing aerobic fitness.....it is however, a bit harder than you might imagine. Today I was killing it. After a day off the bike yesterday my HR was very responsive and I was easily riding at AeT and above the whole way. I took the hilly route to Marshall and would come back on the river. You will hear me talk about riding on "the river" quite often this time of year. Here in Asheville we have the slight prroblem of not having too many flat roads to ride on. Along the river, north to the town of Marshall is about the flattest route. At this time of year it is really important to work on steady endurance riding. Grinding up one side of a climb, then coasting down the other all day is a blast.... but not the best way to develop aerobic endurance fitness....hence , a lot of riding on "the river".

OK, so I am flying around my route for the day...it is cold...it is damp....it is drizzling most of the time, no pronblem. All those good feelings come to an end as I get a flat a little less than an hour from home. No worries...I put in my spare tube. What??@!?!@?! It is flat. No worries I have my handy patch kit...I'll fix one of the tubes. NO, the damn glue is dried up....hmmm what to do. Luckily I have phone service and call a friend who lives 5-10 miles away. Ahhh some luck returns and he is home....and agrees to come to the rescue with a spare tube. Thank you Jamie! Unfortunately after waiting in the cold and wet I get quite chilled and even though I ride pretty hard to get warm for the remaining miles, I am not in such a good way by the time I get home....tonight I am super stressed about my workload this week.....but of course I plan to ride 6 hours tomorrow, so it might be a long wednesday night after the ride getting work done.....out for now.