First Ride with Lola

I did my first real ride with Lola on Wednesday night. An out-and-back to Hamilton Island. This trip features a slightly rolling 10.5 k stretch [Glen Walter to Hamilton Island] along the Mighty St. Lawrence River that is directly into the wind one way or the other. Rarely is there no wind. I recorded my fastest time out. A 38.0 km/hr split. I couldn't believe it. When I turned around, I found out why. The Wind. My ride back was a tad slower.

To take the wind out of the equation, let's look at the harmonic mean of the out-and-back, and compare with other rides.

	31-May-07	12-Jun-07	31-Jul-07	23-Apr-08
Out	31.7	29.5	35.0	38.0
Back	35.7	35.1	27.2	26.9
Harmonic Mean	33.6	32.1	30.6	31.5

Not bad. Not great. This morning, I pulled the trigger on this year's birthday gift. A little something from Wheelbuilder.com to improve that number.

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And, in other news... Half marathon tomorrow. I don't really have a goal time. Last year, I set a conservative goal (for fear of not meeting it perhaps), and I ended up smashing it. I'm pretty sure a repeat 1:42 is not in the cards... but it would be nice......

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PS: Kudos to Guylaine, who will also be doing the half-marathon (for the first time) this Saturday. I set her up on a plan... and she finished it.