Further challenges

I got up a little early the last two mornings.  Yesterday, it was to try to get out before the snow started.  The snow was supposed to start right about the time I was going to leave, so I thought I'd get out a little bit early.

When I got up, I looked and saw no snow on the ground, and thought about riding the road bike (temperature was right around freezing, to boot).  But I was worried about ice on the road, and decided to play it safe.

It turns out I'd've been fine if I'd gone out on the road bike, but I was worried about finding ice the hard way again.  What did surprise me was seeing a couple other cyclists going the other way; I haven't seen hardly any over the last couple of weeks.  Something about the snow and cold, I imagine.  And the hour doesn't help, for that matter.

The one interesting thing is that one of my mittens, in particular, got a lot of water in it (my fault; I could have certainly avoided much, if not all, of that).  That necessitated finally using my boot/glove dryer that I bought a month or so ago.  Glad to see that it seems to've worked well without ruining the equipment; I was a little worried.  We'll see how it works if I need to use it for, say, the Assos gloves.

Today was much more challenging.  That snow that I'd worried about was falling for most of the day yesterday, and it mostly hadn't been cleared.  And I was staying, as much as I could, on the main roads.  It was downright ugly.

And, to add insult to injury, the temperature was down around ten degrees (9-12F).  So it was pretty tough.  I got almost nine miles in, and was thwarted from going further by the tough time I was having keeping my heart rate down.

Essentially, to go further, I'd've needed to go up one or more very steep hills, and there's no way I'd've kept it down on those.  I still got up to 141bpm as it was (target max: 125).

I'd like to say that I conquered the challenge, because I did get out and get miles in, but it's probably more fair to call it a draw, since I did a fair bit less than I really wanted to do.

Tomorrow, I'm not sure.  I might be doing a group ride early, which would require the road bike.  But if not, I think I'll just ride the hybrid again.  I'm not sure I'll find anything except the main roads passable tomorrow (and even those might have some ice on them), so I'm leaning towards playing it safe again.  But if they're doing the group ride, I'll give it a go.