What endurance zone?!

As per Papa's suggestion, I went for a "longish" ride today, but not before some thunder delayed my departure. Pinky told me I was being a wuss and to get out there, so I did.

I rode our self-named 15-mile BCM loop (Brockett-Cooledge-McClendon) and my goal was to stay in my "endurance zone," which I figured out (through many online calculations and Papa's own estimate) to be 130-145. I set my upper limit on the heart monitor to 155 since this was my first time and I wasn't sure if I was going to make the thing explode or not if I went over.

It was so damn hard to stay in that zone! I rode so slowly, covering the 15 miles in 1:25:00. Ouch. I felt like I was crawling at times. Am I doing something wrong or am I just that out of shape that any effort makes my heart rate skyrocket? I guess the good thing is that I rode for an hour plus.

I also tackled something that I've been afraid of for a long time. The route had me come back into the neighborhood on the side that Pinky and I have been avoiding like the plague. An immediate hill, followed by a steep descent and immediate turn onto the mother of all hills - our street. The first hill in was a piece of cake, I didn't set the monitor off until I reached the top. But our street was another story - I had that thing screaming at me almost from the get-go. I was cruising along at first, right after the turn, and then not two seconds later I thought I was peddling through cement. I dropped into my babiest of all gears and after what Pinky thinks is 30 seconds (really, it seemed much longer) I finally get to our driveway.

You'd think it would be over, but no, our driveway is its own separate climb from hell. I could hardly peddle - I actually thought might stall and fall over.

Note to self: I would have been better off summiting the street and hitting the driveway on the return descent.