The naturalist

If you are reading this blog you probably know my personality and what makes me tick, I am not one of those people that can't just go exercise because I love it, there has to be a reason, a competition or a goal. My wife on the other hand is the complete opposite, she can come home from working a 12 hour day, put her shorts and running shoes on and just go, she comes back a completely new de-stressed person. She simply runs because she enjoys it. I LOVE HATE running! It hurts! and it doesn't matter if I am running slow or fast it hurts from my feet, to my ankles, shins all the way to my knees. Needless to say if I am wearing my running shoes it is because I am training for a road race or triathlon and I am equipped with my garmin 310xt, I am tracking my time, cadence and pace the entire time! I have alerts set up to let me know if I am running to slow, or my heart rate is too high, I am obsessed with the data! When I get home from exercising I drop my watch by the computer wait for it to be wirelessly transmitted to the garmin connect site, and then I compare my run time, distance, and conditions to previous runs and if I haven't improved I dont feel like anything was accomplished.

For the most part I feel the same way about cycling, so when my garmin flew off my bike a few weeks ago and started refusing to sync up with satellites it was pretty much catastrophic for me. Who would have thought that velcro would not suffice to hold the computer securely to the bike. (not my brightest moment) The last 5 rides I have been on I have been stuck with my iphone and handy strava application, which is good but only gives me distance, elevation and time. I have to admit it has been nice to just go out and ride, allow myself to feel good, take in the scenery and not worry about how fast I am peddling or the fact that my Heart rate is in zone 4 as opposed to 3 where it should be.

Last Saturday a large amount of my team members decided on a 53 mile ride, starting at the bike shop going to Avant which is on the other side of Skiatook and back. I was thrilled about the idea because I was ready for the challenge. The idea was we were going to get a good "spin" in and not push it too hard because most of us were not ready for that distance, It didn't exactly end up that way and we ended up dropping a hand full of our teammates along the way but as sad as it is to say the experience for me was quite liberating. Throughout the ride I had no idea of our pace, or distance, or my heart rate. We just rode together and moderately pushed each other, it was a great team ride which we don't get to do that often because of everyone's schedule. At the end of the ride I pulled my iphone out of my jersey and was pleasantly surprised to see our pace was over 20 mph. This was never the goal we just went out on a beautiful day and enjoyed a good workout. At this point I am by NO means a naturalist, and still feel like I need THAT DATA, but I do realize maybe I should not pay quite so much attention to it during the ride and just use it as a benefit after in comparison.

Tomorrow is my first Criterium and will be held in Tulsa, I am not sure what to expect or how I will end up but I am sure it will give me plenty to blog about.