Tue Afternoon Ride

87 degrees F, Cloudy and a 17mph wind out of the south... at least it was cloudy. :-)

Good ride, standard river road route so short... last half into the wind, of course.

Stats -
Dist: 16.24 miles
Time: 0:58:36 (h:mm:ss)
Avg. Speed: 16.63 mph
Max Speed: 28.31 mph
kCal: 758
Avg HR: 140 bpm
Max HR: 152 bpm
In Zone: 0:32:43 (h:mm:ss)

Sun AM ride

So met up with Bjorn for our TCBC "Early Morning Madness" ride... We were the only two that showed up, so another nice ride with Bjorn, except for that flat tire I got on Shepherd road. Mid way down Shepherd (near ) is when my rear wheel sound funny. I pulled off the road in in seconds it went from soft to flat. Then I had to bum an inner tube from Bjorn as the stem of mine was too short... sigh. Sadly I took Bjorn's advice and inspected the tire, finding a couple of small cracks (where stones, etc, could get through.) So deciding discretion over valor we headed home.

Then it got fun... :-) As we were having a good conversation Bjorn forgot we had to make a right hand turn to get to the Nokomis Parkway. So suddenly I am using my arm (shoulder to shoulder) to push him away while hoping neither of us crashed. From now on I'm going to call him McEwen from now on. :-D (http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/photos/2005/tour05/?id=tour053/BOONEN22)

71 degrees out (about 22 C for non-US citizens), overcast, and 63% humidity. Enough to be sticky out...

Stats -
Dist: 21.42 miles
Time: 1:16:22 (h:mm:ss - this is on bike time, not including tire change)
Avg Speed: 16.83 mph
Max Speed: 28.03 mph
kCal: 750
Avg HR: 112 (forgot to stop it during the tire change)
Max HR: 139 (didn't hit any really hard hills...)
In Zone: 0:23:56 (h:mm:ss - I don't really believe in the "zone" anymore...)

Sat Morning Ride

Met up with Bjorn at 6:00 AM and headed out. The plan was a two hour flat ride and then hook up with group to do a two hour hill ride... the reality...

So 67 (19.4 C) degrees out warmed up to 77 (25 C) with just over 50% humidity... it's summer in MN. We headed over to Minnehaha Park. Went north on Minnehaha Ave to the round about and then to the Ave back south... all the way to the Mendota Bridge (so through Fort Snelling, etc.) On the other side of the river we got on Old Hwy 13 and then on to the bike trail headed east. Turned around at Lillydale (I think) and reversed our route. From there we went all the way back to West River Road to the Greenway and too that west to Louisiana (Bjorn will have to confirm... forget how far west...) Then u-turned back to Nicollet where we were supposed to hook up with the other group. But... They never showed (waited 20 minutes or so, sigh.) So took Greenway back to West River Road to Minnehaha Park and then back home.

Good flat ride, though the 20 min. break was odd... At the end tried to ramp up the speed on a straight away but didn't have the legs to keep up with Bjorn when he passed me.

Stats -
Dist - 44.2 miles
Time - 2:40:26 (h:mm:ss)
Avg Speed - 16.53 mph (feel pretty good about that.)
Max Speed - 31.18 mph
kCal - 2106
Avg HR - 147 (need to exercise more...)
Max HR - 168 (while serving as Bjorn's 'lead out' man, yeah that's it.)
In Zone - 0:36:32 (h:mm:ss) (zone, what zone)

Tomorrow... early morning hill ride.

Sat. Afternoon Ride & Movie Review

First the ride -
77 degrees out, clear, light wind (seemed mostly out of the south...) Nice ride overall. From my house headed towards Lake Nokomis, then down Minnehaha, and over to the River Road. Took West River Road to Franklin, crossed over the Mississippi and took the East River Road down to Ford Prkwy. Then home from there. On the way home I took 60th Street so I could get a clear view of the C.F. that is Hwy 62, due to 35W being closed this weekend. :-)

Stats
Dist: 17.86 miles
Time: 1:04:04 (h:mm:ss)
Avg. Speed: 16.73 mph (I'm slow. :-( )
Max Speed: 26.72 mph
kCal Burned: 867
Avg HR: 143
Max HR: 158
In Zone: 0:30:01 (h:mm:ss)

Movie Review -
Twilight Samurai (a.k.a. Tasogare Seibei) - came out in 2002
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0351817/
Seibei Iguchi is a low ranking samurai in a small clan in 19th century Japan. After the death of his wife he finds himself in debt and caring for his two young daughters and senile mother. To the consternation of his peers he cares more about his family then he does his appearance and going out to drink with the other samurai of his clan. While trying to struggle on in life, the head of the clan taps him to carry out a mission to kill another samurai.

Overall this is a wonderful, and sad film. We follow the life of a man who just wants to care for his family. Who even admits to a close friend that if it came down to it he would prefer to be a farmer over a samurai. The final scene where he is having a conversation with the man he suppose to kill is wonderful.

Its kinda a classic everyday man struggles and tries to adapt to the changing world around him. Iguchi, you quickly discover, isn't a wimp, but just wants to have a decent life and care for his daugters. (hmm... nope no identification there. :-) )

Side benefit... there are two choreographed fight scenes and both are done very well. From showing distinct fighting styles to being well filmed. Like the other scenes in the movie very little goes to waste visually. It all creates a wonderful tapestry along with a great script and great acting.

Highly recommended and available on Netflix (as soon as I mail my copy back :-) ).