Intense Workouts

Today I was fully prepared to make the journey to class. That, however, changed when I realized that it was too windy for me to make it to class on time. I hitched a ride with my boyfriend, who drives a pickup truck, and I just rode to class from his parking spot.

Leaving my class presented me with an odd choice. I usually have two kinds of workouts that I focus on: distance workouts and time workouts. If I'm going for distance I try to ride 20 miles and if I'm going for timed I try to ride one hour at a rather brisk pace.

This presented an issue for me: I didn't have the time to do either kind of ride today, as I had errands to run before I had to drive to my afternoon/evening classes. (I drive to my evening classes for reasons of my own personal safety. WSU is in a dangerous area!)

I remembered something that my mom said that I kind of took to heart. She said that sometimes it's not the length or the time that matters, it's the intensity of the work. I was riding with the wind going back, so I said what the hell. I put my bike in the 3rd and 5th gears and just let loose.

There were several points in which I looked down at my bike computer and saw that my bike speed was at 17 mph. I was turning corners faster than normal, which was scary as hell, but the little kid in me screamed "WEEEEEEEE!". I got home out of breath and tired, like I just rode 30 miles or something! My mom was correct, intensity can matter just as much as anything else in a workout.

My average speed was at 11.1 by the time I got home. The only reason it wasn't higher was because of the school riding I did where I had to do lots of slow riding to avoid hitting fellow students on sidewalks. That was disappointing to see, but I'm sure my average speed on the bike path was at least 13 mph if not more.

So the moral of the story: intense rides can be just as fun as distance rides and you'd get just as much of a work out in a shorter amount of time if you just pick up the pace a bit.