Funny how you get used to having Data when you ride indoors, or even outside. Last night I did my usual indoor ride at Newington Bike without my trusty Garmin at my side, I left it attached to the computer. The upside is that I found myself riding by feel, as I always used to, and liked it. I just wish I had the data to analyze the difference between knowing my HR, and not knowing during indoor workouts. I am curious to know whether I road harder with data or without.
When I ride with the Garmin, I feel I watch my HR and regulate my effort to reach certain HR's zones, which as an old fart I do liberally. When I ride without the Garmin I ride by effort and fatigue. When I get tired I slow down, (Dah). However last night I did not get tired often, so I just kept raising the bar a bit.
The problem now is that I don't have any data to compare to show how I felt translates into reality. I would love to compare HR's on Garmin's Training Center software. This would provide me with real information about whether I bumb down my rides based on my HR and that Data watching is not always a good thing.
I also loose the miles on my yearly goal of 2500 total miles for the year. This year I have only not had my Garmin twice on rides of 10 and 15 miles for a total of 25 miles. This is insignificant now, but last year I lost a bunch more, as I did not ride with the Garmin on all my commutes, loosing 10 miles a day 3 times a week for about 3 months, (A guestimation). Since this year I do not commute, as I change job locations, and am now too far to commute regularly, this loss will not be significant. The answer may lie in placing my Garmin in a rear pocket during 1 ride per week, and comparing the results...A sort of lab experiment on myself...KEWL.
Stay tuned for the results of this experiment to be posted sometime later this summer.
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