Ride of my life

I had a special treat yesterday.  Dave, my husband, and I got to cycle together.  Usually we take turns going for rides because one of us has to stay and watch the kinder, but we had a mini-weekend together while their local 'grandparents' watched them for us Sat night.  We got up Sun morning, and instead of our old usual (going to a local breakfast joint and eating a big breakfast while reading the Sunday papers), we left the house at 8 am and did a 23 mile bike ride.  Dave has been cycling a bit longer than me, and definitely has more endurance, but stayed back with me at my 13.5 mph pace for the ride.  The countryside was beautiful, there was very little traffic, the hills were grueling, but it was fun to do it together. 

We're going to the NC mountains to visit with some friends for the weekend of the 4th, and we might get to do another ride together, so we're taking our bikes with us.  This necessitated another trip to the bike store to purchase a rack carrier for my car.  I think we've definitely crossed over to enthusiast lately as we spend time in the bike shop every couple weeks.  It is wonderful though to have an activity that we both enjoy and can do together (since we don't golf, fish, camp, play tennis or any other team sport). 

Finally, I'd like to thank everyone who has offered words of encouragement - I do appreciate the support.  I bought myself a heart rate monitor and I want to try to use that for training (especially for the run) for a while and see if it helps, especially since cardiovascular fitness is my weakness.  I wore the monitor for the bike ride yesterday, but I'm still trying to figure out how to access all the data.  I've been reading some guides that offer training programs using heart rate, so I am going to try to focus on that rather than distance or time for the moment.