Century Training - Week 2; Day 4

Week: 2
Day: 4

Ride: Brisk
Route: Hilly

Scheduled Mileage: 13

Actual Mileage: 14.44

Average Speed: 16.1 mph*

Max Speed: 26.7 mph

*Includes city street speed average

Average BPM: 151
Max BPM: 166

Calories: 434

Random Notes to Self:

• It takes a lot of power to look like you are pedaling easily and effortlessly while cruising at over 20 mph. It becomes painfully obvious when seasoned cyclists breeze by you with smooth, even strokes, and you seem to be pumping and straining to maintain a 16-mph average ride; must learn this technique and strengthen my legs.
• Headwinds are not your friend.
• Will cycle along the Hudson River tomorrow to get a change of scenery and some flat terrain before my six laps around Central Park on Saturday (34 miles scheduled for my next long-ride day).

Most of my weekday evening rides have been beginning and ending at Columbus Circle, at the southwest entrance to Central Park. I am able to conveniently - and relatively safely in city traffic - cycle less than 10 blocks up Eighth Avenue and enter the park at the Merchant's Gate. Once inside the park, it's fairly smooth sailing with lighter street traffic and minimal stoplight interruptions. Even though the sun is gone before I finish my rides, like last night when I paused to take this photo at the base of the Time Warner Center, the park remains busy enough for me to feel safe about getting in all of my scheduled mileage after work [job #1].

Day 4 each week is an off-day on my Century Training schedule; however, inclement weather on Tuesday threw this week off by one day. More damp, windy weather, and lower temperatures are predicted through the weekend, which I hope doesn't drastically interfere with the remainder of Week 2.

Mark was right. I'm getting to know the Weather Channel and weather.com very well. I had already felt like I was on a first-name basis with Sam Champion on Good Morning America, largely because forecasts became more important to me since my feet became my primary form of transportation when I moved to New York City. But I'm starting to care about things like the horizontal direction and speed of air motion - also known as wind velocity.