I hate cardio!

so, today was a cardio day for me and I recall now why I hate cardio so much!

I decided to go for a bike ride, planned a 4 mile route through the neighborhood streets and on to a gravel pathway for a bit, and then back on to some side roads to return home. I used http://www.mapmyrun.com to create the route I was going to follow, it's a great resource for running / biking as you can plot out course following roads or going across terrain that is not on a road. It calculates distances as you select your route and allows you undo sections of your route as you create it. Here is a link to the actual route I took on the bike ride http://www.mapmyrun.com/route/us/tx/little%20elm/506127488434928721


So I thought I was set on a good route and hopped on the mountain bike I haven't so much as taken for a 1/2 mile spin in years let alone what I was about to do. I know 4 miles doesn't sound like much, but being out of shape and in horrible cardio shape that was about all I was going to go for today, figuring I could do it in less then 20 minutes by pushing the pace a good beat.

about a half mile into my ride I realized that I should have probably checked the tire pressure as they were a bit squishy, so I just kept on going figuring it would make the workout better having to put more effort into the ride than I originally planed. so I'm about to reach the point where I had planned on turning off of the gravel path back on to the road only to find that the turn was completely under construction and I couldn't make the turn. So I knew that continuing on I would follow a loop through the park and return back to get back to the loop of the gravel path and back on to the street.

This ended up in adding more than another mile from my originally planned route, I didn't mind so much as I felt pretty good about making the ride a bit longer anyways.

I pushed hard through the end of the ride and ended up riding for 5.33 miles in about 23 minutes. Not quite sure how to gauge it since it was my first ride, so I figure I'll just continue the same route for a few more rides and focus on beating the time from my first ride and go from there.

I'll be feeling this in my thighs tomorrow for sure!

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