The Hairs

We visited the Wightman’s Farm/Apple Orchard in Morristown, NJ on Sunday, October 5th for a couple of hours of family fun. The pictures are available on family photo site (link to Wightman’s Farm pictures). Some samples from the day:

So.. I finally felt like I was in good enough shape to meet up with Evan a buddy here in town. He’s an avid cyclist (both road and trail riding) who took me on a new circuit around Watchung Reservation in Central New Jersey. It was much harder than the circuit I’ve become accustomed to riding. The big hill in my circuit is the *start* and not the feature.

The average speed took a major hit and I only averaged 12.4 MPH and ended with an odometer reading of 14.6 miles. It would have been much lower had we not gone down the hills we climbed. Needless to say, I was huffing and puffing for a good portion of the ride. That’s a good thing - it takes me out of my comfort zone.

As noted in the title, this was “stage 1″ in his book. He has a “stage 2″ that he routinely cycles and has devised a “stage 3″ but has not ridden that yet. For now, his “stage 1″ is enough of a workout.

I took a brief break from cycling over the past four days. The rest was due to the fact that I couldn’t turn my head completely. At most I had 65% use looking to the left. I guess it was some muscle in my upper back & neck that I had strained. The last time I went out before today, on the 26th of August, it was really starting to hurt.

On the night of the 27th, I did not have a restful sleep and was doped up on pain killers (over the counter of course…) on the 28th. Today, the movement in my neck was back to say.. 90-95% so I went out again.

My legs are strengthening and my speed is going up. On the 26th, I met my first goal of completing 15 miles in an hour. Today, I averaged 15.4 MPH in a hair over an hour. My progress:

• August 12th - 13.8 MPH
• August 17th - 14.2 MPH
• August 18th - 14.5 MPH
• August 23rd - 14.7 MPH
• August 26th - 15.2 MPH
• August 31st - 15.4 MPH

For consistency sake, these results are from the same circuit. As noted in this entry it includes a few hills including a fun climb at the beginning of the workout to get the heart pumping.

I’d like to get up to 17.5 miles in a hour. This looks like a stretch goal at this point - autumn on our heels. If only we lived in a place more conducive to year round outdoor sports….

A few weeks ago, Danielle dragged me out to the local bike shop to have our bike’s tuned and to purchase a “Riley chariot” that she could pull on her bike. Unfortunately, Riley’s not a huge fan of it, and even less so of his helmet. So… I have started biking on my own. The first week was pretty rough. At most I could do 7 miles with some hills. Last week, my stamina and strength started to build and this week - well - wow!

Today’s ride was great. It was the first time I was on a bike for more than an hour in.. Hell.. I don’t even know how long it’s been. At the least, 4 years and at the most 12 years. My ride today started with a gentle wind in my face (felt like a slap occasionally…) and an ascent of ~ 280 FT over a long twisty hill of ~ 1.5 miles.

Once I got to the top, I took a few spins around a half mile loop to catch my breath and then caught some more oxygen on the descent. The fastest I have hit on the way down is ~ 36-38 MPH and it feels great after the ascent!

The remainder of the trip was on a couple of hilly areas but mostly flat land between Mountainside and Cranford, NJ. The complete trip (with the loopy loops not counted on the Google Map/GMap link was 14.4 miles @ 1 hour and 5 minutes. Considering I hit the big hill today, I was very happy with an average of 13.8 MPH over that period. Besides, I have a cross country bike and not a thin tired road/race bike. Sure, I have slicks but the extra rubber (2.1″) does cause some friction…

My neighbor, Dave, is looking into getting a bike. He’s an avid runner - 7:15 miles - so I’m sure he will be able to keep up if not pace us..

As far as Danielle goes - she’s more into running and has started doing this with and without Riley. I’ve given some thought to running again - used to run competitive cross country in high school. However, I’m a bit more bursty and not a long distance type. When running 6 KM competitions, I would pace as long as possible and then sprint the last 100-200 yards. Since then, I’ve come to understand I probably have more fast twitch than slow twitch muscle fibers. We’ll see!

Riley Maverick Hair playing the backyard. In this video, Riley starts out innocently playing with a bucket. He quickly becomes mischievous and body slams daddy and then attacks the poor little defenseless flowers. To view the video, click on the article or “Read the rest of the entry”.

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