ej (v6b)

WOW!  The weather got cold, work got busy, it’s DARK at 6:30!  Did I mention the wind???  What’s up with that?  The century got “winded” out this past weekend–the folks that did it reported 35+mph winds!  I’m glad I took the pass on that!  Anyway, I ended up having a great time at THE Halloween party, but I managed to ride Sunday morning anyway!

So this week, it’s been cold and windy so I found a new way to work out.  I’ve been going to the gym riding the Net Expresso machine.  It’s essentially an upright workout bike, BUT it’s way better than that!  I has a 19″ video screen that play the course you’re on, WITH a pacer and opponents.  You can pass them, but if you slow down you start getting passed!  It has hills, and a “gearshift” that can change up or down through 30 “gears.”  It also records heart-rate from my Polar transmitter, and displays both instantaneous and average power.  The gym also has a challenge board.  This weeks course is 6.8 miles with hills.  In my first try I did 20:23.  Today I played around with some of the easier courses before I did it, and I still did 21:20, so not bad!  It’s pretty cool that it gives power readings.  I wasn’t really pushing today, but I still managed to average 165-175 watts with my heart rate at around 78-85%, so that was pretty cool.  The documentation says that it’s supposed to work online and it will automatically record my workouts, but it’s not working yet.  The employees at the Y said that they are getting more of them in December, so that will be cool.