Riding on the SF peninsula. Aww yeah.

Drove to the park & ride at Highways 84 and 280 and had ourselves a 3 man ride. A lot of roads I hadn't ridden (on a motorcycle) in a long time, and never on a bicycle.

Rode here:

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It has a few hills.

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The climb up Old La Honda road is a good place to keep track of PR. Lap 2 sets the benchmark for me. Today was my first try.

I like the elevation profile.

This place was along the way on the return leg. Me likey. Was running short of water due to, shall we say, lack of planning.

Drive less? Ride more.

Rode over to the local bike shop yesterday. Swapped my old Hard Rock for one of these.

Liked it. Maybe not the lightest thing out there but it climbed OK and was very confidence inspiring on downhills and just begged you to go faster on the wide open trail. Brakes and drivetrain felt smooth and predictable and very user friendly. The saddle didn't look very comfort oriented but was actually much nicer than any of my current bikes. The quick adjust collar was so convienient I think I may get one for my roadie.

Resting up today for a scheduled 65 miler tomorrow. Riding volume may be up just a tad until I get myself behind a steering wheel again in a month or two.

Cardiologists have an unfair advantage.

Just because I had one random episode, which I still think was vasovagal, that caused me to pass out for no apparent reason, the cardiologist thinks that 2 weeks is not enough symptom-free time gone by to make it OK to do a sprint tri with an OWS. So sad for me. If actually getting to the event was not a problem as well I may have had a harder time accepting that advice.

Probably the workout for the day will be a 3 mile hike with the dog. Wheee.

1990 Specialized Hard Rock upgrades

Irony isn't the word, but this is the common mis-usage.

Was in the hospital when the event photographer from the last tri finally posted up the pics. Here's the two best ones. Finally, a shot where it looks like I'm actually running. Somewhat.

Managed 20mph in that position on the bike so I could only imagine how fast the pace would be there if I could get my torso flat.

Syncope.

Last Friday I left home in my truck to drive with my dog to the park. Had been up for about an hour. Hadn't eaten since the night before, but that is normal for me. Felt fine. It was shaping up to be a nice clear, sunny day and I was looking forward to the walk, then coming home and having some food, and having the whole day ahead of me. There would probably be a good workout later in the day.

However, we only made it half a block. Driving down the street I felt lightheaded for a second, thought I could shake it off, but the next thing I knew I was waking up from a blackout.

Several days later I now know that the lightheaded feeling was a sign my heart rate had dropped so low my brain was not getting enough oxygen and it shut me down. This unfortunately led to my now driverless car drifting into a neighbors driveway and clobbering their parked car. It was a small Honda and although my full sized Toyota truck can be as good as new with a new $200 bumper, the car may be totaled.

Since I can apparently black out with little warning now, the doctors told me not to drive until we can figure out what is going on.

A weekend of being hooked up to EKG monitoring didn't reveal anything, except that like many athletic people I have a low resting heart rate. An echocardiogram thankfully also showed nothing remarkable. 47,000 blood samples didn't show anything wrong.

When I first was admitted they stuck an IV hookup in me just in case they needed to use it later in a hurry. Maybe it was the insertion, maybe it was me moving my arm too much with it in there for 3 days, but I think it bothered the median nerve that runs along the inner part of your forearm. Like so:



My thumb, forefinger and middle finger are a bit tingly. Have tweaked other nerves before and had similar feeling. Have had worse and it got better, so it doesn't worry me much.

Stress testing later in the week to help try and pinpoint the cause of what may be allowing my heart to beat too slowly sometimes. Too bad it doesn't include VO2 testing because I'd actually like to do that. At least the cardiologist approved of the level of exercise I try and keep up as a healthy thing and not something to avoid.