My Morning Commute

[Certifried]

@rcannon100 33365 wrote:

I LIKE riding at a moderate pace. With all due respect to our resident triathlete – I never get this. Riding a bike to me is…. fun. Kill myself on my way home???? Make myself blurry??? But there are puppy dogs to watch!!! And rowers on the potomac! And the sun is rising over the Capital.

I ride cause I love my ride. At 50, I am faster than 85% of the riders – slower than all of the ELITE riders – and who cares?! I dont understand the question. I dont do this for pain?!?!? I do this for the joy of the ride!! (that an the excuse to eat all the ice cream I want).

While I also love my ride, I wouldn’t mind going a little faster. It takes about 2 hours, including the bus ride, to get to work. I’m hoping I can cut it down a little, which would give me more time each day. That would make it easier to ride every day, instead of sucking up 20 hours a week commuting.

[vvill]

@Certifried 33358 wrote:

Thanks for all the suggestions! I kind of figured “intervals” would be a primary reply. I’ve read about riding at the same pace makes you really good at riding at the same pace. I try to push myself harder each time, but my average speed is only barely going up. I know some people say the best way to get better at riding is to ride heh. So, as hard as it is for me to make myself slow down, I’ll do that. There are some nice spots on my commute where I can ride hard, followed by spots where I can transition to a recovery speed. How about ‘recovery days’? Am I at the level where I actually need many recovery days? I know that sometimes (some days) I’m a bit sore, not so much that I can’t walk like when you first start a new workout, but enough that I worry I might need a little recovery time.

I don’t know much about recovery, but I find it’s much easier to push yourself when you’re with others who are also pushing themselves. I can only push myself to go so fast, but with a group it seems so much easier when everyone is killing themselves.

[Tim Kelley]

@Certifried 33358 wrote:

How about ‘recovery days’? Am I at the level where I actually need many recovery days? I know that sometimes (some days) I’m a bit sore, not so much that I can’t walk like when you first start a new workout, but enough that I worry I might need a little recovery time.

DaveK’s favorite motivational quote that I like to say is “Make the easy days easy, so that you can make the hard days hard.”

From the most general viewpoint, to see the best gains you’ll need to have enough of a variation between days to give you body rest. It’s not the workout that you do that makes you faster, it’s the rest/recovery you have after the workout that makes you faster. You can probably ride every day and throw in a day or two each week of hard intervals spaced out with some easier days in between.

[Certifried]

@Tim Kelley 33398 wrote:

DaveK’s favorite motivational quote that I like to say is “Make the easy days easy, so that you can make the hard days hard.”

From the most general viewpoint, to see the best gains you’ll need to have enough of a variation between days to give you body rest. It’s not the workout that you do that makes you faster, it’s the rest/recovery you have after the workout that makes you faster. You can probably ride every day and throw in a day or two each week of hard intervals spaced out with some easier days in between.

awesome! Thanks. I won’t be qualifying for any races (even cat 6 lol) anytime soon, but definitely am hoping to get a little faster on my commutes.

[Certifried]

About 1/2 way through my ride this morning, I looked up. What a gorgeous sunrise! I couldn’t help but think, “man, I hope Dirt is snapping pix of this!”. I wasn’t let down, his twitter feed was beautiful this morning. My own pix are uploading now, and I’ll post a link in a bit. There’s a happy little girl at work today, just chatting away as sweet as squirrels, chipmunks, and birds in the morning. I almost didn’t ride today, but I’m so glad I did.

[Certifried]

The Metal Box of Misery, a.k.a. Metro

DSCN0555 by certifried, on Flickr

Forest Fire! (no, not really)

DSCN0542 by certifried, on Flickr

Orange you glad you rode this morning?

DSCN0554 by certifried, on Flickr

[Certifried]

Sligo Creek Parkway was closed tonight for, I assume, salting. I guess it’s going to freeze tonight. It was fun to have the entire road to myself (until I came across the salt truck lol)

Sligo Creek Parkway was closed for, I believe, salting the road?! I guess it will freeze tonight? by certifried, on Flickr

[CPTJohnC]

This morning was one of the very few times I’ve ridden to work in the rain by choice. Mentally I had committed to riding much earlier in the week, because I so rarely get to commute more than 4-5 miles at a shot these days.

It was, predictably, wet, but not so bad. My ankles and legs weren’t nearly as grimy as I expected, and with the weather being so warm, the rain was almost pleasant. My panniers performed quite admirably in the off-and-on, light drizzle, and other than both my GPS and my phone shutting down time/distance tracking, I had no equipment issues. Now if I could just figure out a better solution to foggy glasses.

[Certifried]

@CPTJohnC 33977 wrote:

Now if I could just figure out a better solution to foggy glasses.

http://www.velominati.com/the-rules/#39

[Terpfan]

@Certifried 33594 wrote:

Sligo Creek Parkway was closed tonight for, I assume, salting. I guess it’s going to freeze tonight. It was fun to have the entire road to myself (until I came across the salt truck lol)

Sligo Creek Parkway was closed for, I believe, salting the road?! I guess it will freeze tonight? by certifried, on Flickr

If they’re preapplying now then it will probably rain a ton in November making it useless. Always seems to be how it goes.

[jrenaut]

I had to do my commute twice today. I forgot my laptop, and I can’t really do anything constructive without it. I would have worked at home, but there are only three of us on the team – one on vacation drinking beer in Germany, and one at home with a 5 day old baby. So it’s just me.

Oh, woe is me, I had to bike to work twice. And home once already. Woe, woe is me. Truly a tragedy.

[Certifried]

@jrenaut 34119 wrote:

I had to do my commute twice today. I forgot my laptop, and I can’t really do anything constructive without it. I would have worked at home, but there are only three of us on the team – one on vacation drinking beer in Germany, and one at home with a 5 day old baby. So it’s just me.

Oh, woe is me, I had to bike to work twice. And home once already. Woe, woe is me. Truly a tragedy.

5 day old? Their eyes are open at that point, right? He can’t leave a bowl of milk out for it? That guy should’ve gone in

[CPTJohnC]

The Bike portion of my commute was fine today. However, during the 4 wheel portion of my commute I think someone declared it “Red lights are only a suggestion” day for everyone. I saw 4 really egregious red light violations. Egregious, as in they weren’t even close to the intersection when the light turned, but proceed through a fully red light. In reverse chronological order: #1 came around me after I had fully stopped at the red, and just blew through the intersection (big pick-up). The second was a bike, and he nearly caused a multi-car-and-bike event because he was running a red on Rhode Island Avenue. The third was on Constitution Avenue — I don’t know what the guy was thinking (or texting), but he just kept going well after the light had turned. Unfortunately, it was not at one of the camera intersections. The last was near home, and involved a small car following an oversize vehicle way too closely, so that she couldn’t see, so she followed after the truck that had already run the red pretty badly himself. I think there was also one on 5th St. but I guess I’ve blocked that one out.

Be careful out there!

[dasgeh]

@CPTJohnC 34188 wrote:

The third was on Constitution Avenue — I don’t know what the guy was thinking (or texting), but he just kept going well after the light had turned.

Constitution is the worst. I used to cross it (at 21/20th NW) on my commute, and cars routinely would blow through the red — I honestly think some drivers just tune out the whole “traffic lights on the side” thing. If only MPD/NPP would EVER enforce the rules here…

[CPTJohnC]

@dasgeh 34200 wrote:

Constitution is the worst. I used to cross it (at 21/20th NW) on my commute, and cars routinely would blow through the red — I honestly think some drivers just tune out the whole “traffic lights on the side” thing. If only MPD/NPP would EVER enforce the rules here…

I wish I were talking about blowing through a late yellow/ early red. This guy went through on full red, with cars stopped and waiting.

I’m not a huge fan of red light cameras, but I will admit that they do change behavior, at least when people know they’re there. The camera at 15th has really helped, at least right there, I think.

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