Keeping it cool

I got up when my alarm went off, this morning.  The first thing I did was order the Apple Watch for my wife.  Two hours and a few minutes after opening for orders, they were already up to June delivery.  Well, hopefully that's the first half of June, and I can make it a birthday present for her, which wouldn't be a disaster.

Apparently, they sold out of the initial availability within minutes.

In any event, from there I got dressed and on the road.  I wasn't feeling as bad as I anticipated, but definitely wasn't feeling great, either.  I did a slightly shorter version of my normal loop that worked out to twelve miles.  And it took me a few minutes more than an hour, so I was definitely not hurrying.  My heart rate still wasn't great, despite that, though.

I maxed at 131, which wasn't bad, but it just seemed to keep getting to (and staying) higher than I wanted it to be.  And higher than I thought it should be, given the relatively little exertion.

There was some rain, but it wasn't bad.  The temperature was about five degrees cooler than expected (40F vice 45F), but still not too bad.

Anyway, tomorrow should be clear, dry, and medium temperature (50F).  The people in the group ride aren't going to be around, which is probably just as well, given how I'm feeling; they're going to be doing a 13-hour off-road race.  Ouch.  Glad I won't be involved in that.

I'm going to try to do a slow thirty miles or so.  I still haven't figured out the route, though I'm leaning towards a variant of my loop that goes down through Old Town Alexandria.

Fortunately, the bike shop that did the work that led to the problems yesterday was very fair about handling the problems.  They fixed the front derailleur in a way that shouldn't replicate the problem, gave me a cheap tire (unexpected bonus, actually.  We had talked, and I had said that leaving it without a tire was fine), and gave me store credit for the tire that was slashed (wouldn't have that tire available for a month or so, plus the credit will go towards that wheel re-spoking).  Works for me.  Definitely won't be afraid to go back to Papillon.

Oh, and I should mention the National Bike Challenge.  As near as I can tell, it's a sponsored event to encourage people to bike more, especially as a substitute for driving.  Feel free to sign up, and get riding.  If you're using Strava, it can automatically import data from there.  It won't really start until May first, but you can still build up points before then.  I was shocked to find out that I'm number fifty-one overall; that seems way too high.  I guess I was helped by riding every day this year; you get points for miles and points for days riding.