RIDE TONIGHT - PLUS: WINTER TRAINING - IT'S LIKE LEARNING JAPANESE -

Having let my training slip a little during the past couple of weeks I now find myself now ill-prepared for the upcoming Versluis Snowcross II, this coming Saturday. While Joseph W. Grimes (pictured above) may find that riding the Cleveland Bicycle will bring back his form, for me, I not so sure a new bike, even one from Cleveland, is going to help much.

After reading countless, (wow) almost endless posts on Facebook about every ride, trip to the gym, spin class, cross country ski outing, number of trips up the stairs, Winter Tri's, that all my friends have been partaking in during the last month I decided, with only few days to the race left, that I should take some serious action. So I went out and bought a new heart-rate monitor to replace the failing heart-monitor I've had for the last 5-years. I based my purchase by buying the HR Monitor with the best looking, and fittest people on the packaging. (See above). I was also pretty excited about the fact that this HR Monitor, alone, would once again make exercise exciting and fun, not to mention what ever that babble in French is.

I was also glad to see that it would register heart rates, pictured above, of anywhere from 127 to 132. For the past year my HR Monitor would not budge above 98. I'm assuming that this was a mechanical issue on the monitor's part, and not my heart's part. I guess I'll find out when I strap this baby on for tonight's ride.

Now the only other problem I have is that before training I'm going to have to learn to read Japanese. I'm assuming that this is Japanese. But it could be Mandarin Chinese, or Thai, for all I know. So I might be a little late getting there tonight, but I plan on being there. And hopefully I'll have all the HR Monitor's functions figured out so I can download my heart beats, from the entire ride, and beer drinking session afterward at the HC, on Facebook so all my friends can see how awesome I am.

Later, Bastards.