North Shore Century ride

Today I participated in the North Shore Century ride. A one hundred mile round trip ride from Evanston, IL to Kenosha, Wisconsin through the North Shore suburbs. The route has about a 3,000ft elevation gain.

Overall it was a good experience and I felt pretty good the whole way. I did end up getting lost two to three times. Something that is not pleasant, especially when you end up having to ride extra miles. You also waste time trying to find your way. I ended up riding a total of 106 miles in about seven hours.
fun fun...

PS: My deepest apologies to my brother Michael and my good friend and riding buddy, Wilson. I let them both down this morning when I failed to get out of bed on time. I am not very happy about that. I am also not at all happy with the 'weekdays only' alarm feature on my phone...

Swimming instruction

My swim class started today. The class is held in an endless pool with the instruction of two coaches. The endless pool produces a stream of water which allows you to swim while staying stationary while fighting the current, sort of like a treadmill. This way the coaches are able to closely watch your stroke and position in the water and make corrections as needed. Cameras are also used to record the session. This allows for further critiquing and playback to the swimmer.


I was recorded swimming today. The video will be critiqued in our next session. We also spent some time going through various exercises. These were simple and focused on maintaining stability and straight form in the water. I will have to do some homework to make sure I perfect these before the next session.

Getting better...

Cycling class is now in session

Today I had my first cycling computrainer class. It is an eight session class that meets once a week. You basically mount your bike on a stationary trainer which is wired to a computer. The computer allows you to ride simulated courses. Your progress, along with other figures are shown on a large monitor. Every participant in the class is also shown on the screen, represented by a little rider on a bike. This makes it appear as though you are playing a racing game as you get to compete with others in the class. This is of course is not encouraged. Instead, the key figure everyone is told to pay attention to is the power output, which is measured in watts.

Today's class was composed of a 40 minute test in a simulated course which contained various hills. The goal was to capture the riders' average wattage. On the final day of class there will be another test that will hopefully show how much each rider has improved. My average wattage throughout the test was 183watts.

Let's see how much I can improve...