Long July 4th Bike Ride (with New Garmin!)

I got up at 2:45 a.m. on Wednesday July 4th. I've actually been getting up at that time on Wednesday's since the first of the year because our Church is doing "Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration," and I signed up for the (UnGodly) hour of 3-4 a.m. every Wednesday. It's been interesting to have an hour to sit in silence at Church, flip through the Bible, and contemplate my religious beliefs. I don't need to go into it, but it's made me a better person. Maybe this surprises some of you... I don't know. I have my faith, I'm happy with it, and I don't try to force it upon anyone. We all have the right to believe what we want to believe. I'm a liberal Catholic: I wish women could be priests, I wish priests could marry, and I wish the Church didn't treat gay and lesbian couples the way it does. But I don't talk about it much because I don't want to "start something." We all can have our own religious beliefs, and we don't need to fight about it. There. That's my religion in a nutshell.

"No, this is me in a nutshell. Help! I'm in a nutshell! How did I get into this nutshell? Look at
the size of this bloody great big nutshell! What sort of shell has a nut like this? This is crazy!"
Anyone remember this? No? OK... moving on.

So I had some breakfast, got "geared up," and was ready for a long ride! I usually don't have the chance to really fit in a workout early Wednesday mornings because Pharmie has to get up early to get ready for work. So if Henry wakes up, it's my duty after a certain hour. But it was the 4th of July and she didn't work. Now was my chance! (Plus, the roads would be extra quiet because it was a holiday - who's up at 4 am on the 4th of July?!?)

As I was getting all set to go, I snapped a self-portrait with my cell phone outside:

Yeah. There it is. Apparently, it's still quite dark at 4:30 a.m.

I set Goldilocks outside and grabbed a photo of her:

Those 2 little parallel reflections in the middle is her saddle. I think.

The sky was just starting to lighten, so I grabbed a photo showing a tree in our front yard against the dark blue sky as it was starting to lighten a bit:

Beautiful. Invisible. Pointless. Sorry.

Off I went. I had to turn around about 4 miles in because the cops had a road closed near a park by the Ford Plant. It looked as if they were looking for someone "on the run," so I didn't want to go riding through there. I altered my course and kept at it.

I stopped about 12 miles into the ride to refill my water. I grabbed another photo now that it was starting to get lighter:

Around 5:30 or so.

I forgot to mention... I stopped to refill water that soon because it was 85 degrees and as humid as my balls. It was THICK and yucky out there. It was all week. Anyway, I dropped a Nuun in my refilled bottle and took off.

I looped up into downtown St. Paul (which was DEAD [as it usually is]) and crossed the Wabasha Street Bridge. I rode by a Mexican Bakery where Pharmie and I had some DELICIOUS rolls on a bike ride about 5 years ago, and made my way to a trail along the Mississippi.

Riding on the levee at mile 16ish with the stank of slaughterhouses to my right.

I crossed the river, got along Hwy 61, and headed back towards downtown St. Paul. I rode along side of a doe near 61 and Warner while riding through some low-lying fog. Beautiful.

I told myself I'd go "a decent pace" through mile 35, and then I'd ease up. I over-shot home because I was headed to the finish line at the "Red, White & BOOM!" Half Marathon (shortened to a 5-mile because of the heat). As I was cheering in the finishers, I snapped a photo of my new toy:

Yep. Pharmie got me the "Garmin 910xt" for Father's Day!! It's my FIRST Garmin! I enjoyed having it on the ride, but I haven't downloaded my data yet. Their website says the "Garmin ANT Agent" needed to download files from my Garmin to my laptop works on Mac OS X 10.4.11 or later, and I run OS X 10.4.11 on my 6 year old laptop:

But when I tried to install it, it wouldn't work as it told me "Must be OS X 10.5 or Greater." I contacted Garmin, we went back a forth twice, and as of Thursday afternoon, this is how it was left by the people at Garmin:

It looks like there is a glitch. We are looking into this to see if we cannot find out what is going on. Our current version of ANT Agent will not work on 10.4.11 so we are looking into seeing if we have the version that will work for it. At this point though I cannot promise that we can get it to work.

I think by "glitch" he means "typo on our website that screws you over once you've purchased our $400 product, Steve Stenzel." I'm pretty pissed. I pretty much have a large expensive watch. But let's move on.

Anyway....

I cheered on the runners as they cross the Stone Arch Bridge to finish the "Red, White & BOOM!" 5-Mile race. CLICK HERE to see a slideshow of photos I took with my cell phone. I cheered for a half hour, and then rode back home. Here was my final map of the day (mapped out with mapmyrun and not my Garmin):

Basically an ugly figure-8 with an added little out-and-back to the NW.

That was my longest ride in over 2 years! In April of 2010, I went on a 44 miler with 2 of my brother-in-laws, and we posted the same 18.5 mph average as I did this last week.

So we'll see if I can get my Garmin fully connected to my computer one of these days, and I'll try that out on more workouts. The Life Time Fitness Olympic Distance Triathlon is next weekend!! I won't be gunning for any sort of PR - I'll just be racing for fun.

Oh, and here are a few recent Examiner articles of mine:

- A slideshow of photos from the "Red, White & BOOM! Half Marathon."
- A love story made itself apparent in the results of the MinneMan Triathlon.
- My interview with former Olympian Carrie Tollefson about her upcoming running camp for kids.
- Slideshow of photos from the Lake Waconia Triathlon.
- Clinic dates have been set for those interested in becoming a USAT Official.
- Minneapolis has introduced free weekly open-water swims across Lake Nokomis.
- And as always, you can "like" the "St. Paul Triathlon Examiner" on Facebook for updates in your News Feed.

Happy weekend!