Kitty Hunting in the Alpes

I figured today would be a great day for a LSD ride - I was thinking something around 2 hours, flat, and about 60km. I wasn't even gonna let my HR get over 150. Nice and easy. Then Bartman called.

"Hey," he says, "wanna come over - I got my new toy!"

Now how am I supposed to say no to playing with a new bike toy? Especially when the toy is a new Tacx Fortius trainer! I threw my gear on, and headed out the door.

Then came the set-up problems. We tried to get it set-up on my macbook, running parallel, but couldn't get it to work. I'm gonna have to play with that for a bit. So, I hauled out my PC laptop and loaded it up on there - no problems. What course to ride to test this thing? Ahhhhh, yes, the Alpes.

I guess I kind of bit off a little more than I could chew - I decided to ride the whole course - it's about 82km long. Doesn't sound like much, right? It is if the first 20km is up the Col de Galibier (first 10km at 7-8%, last 10km at 10%) Then, a nice long decent of 20km - and then the next climb (can't remember name now) of about 15km, short decent - and finally, the Alpe D'Huez - 13.9km of 9-11% grades.

Me and The Cat had a good chase back and forth up the Galibier - but then I gave him "the look" and dropped him as I accelerated up a 10% section. I was putting out about 400watts during that acceleration, held it for about 1 minute, and then eased back down to 200wats of output. I managed to hold that all the way up the Galibier.

At the bottom of the Galibier I realized I wasn't going to have enough time to do the next climb AND Alpe D'Huez, so I stopped, and restarted at the bottom of Alpe D'huez. Holy cow this one was a killer! My legs were pretty cooked from the last climb, but I wanted to see what it was like. I passed lots of cyclists on the way up (like I said, the video on this is amazing!) - and, of course, one of them was Kitty (he got a head start on me.) He really looked like he was suffering. Pooor KItty! Unfortunately, half way up I had to stop as my wife called and reminded me that I had the vehicle and she needed it...

My foot cramped up pretty bad afterwards, and I realized that I"m going to have to spend more time on some long rides, and maybe look at getting some work done to my shoes.

All in all - a GREAT work-out! I really enjoyed riding Bart's new toy, and getting to drop Kitty was a real bonus. At my weigh-in today I'm down to 83.2kg. A little less than 3 more kg to get to my January goal.

As for the questions re: my sense of taste. I have no memory of anything different - so I won't say that I have no sense of taste - I think I taste things! I do, however, tend to really like spicey food, and I suspect that's a big reason why. Everybody around here always says, "wow, how sad, you can't even smell your wife's perfume!" I usually reply with, "yeah, but I couldn't smell her when she got sprayed by a skunk, either - so it's a wash."