Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Well No Effing Wonder!

I pulled my bike/trainer contraption into the living room in front of the big screen TV and watched almost all of Grosse Point Blank during my ride. I was starving and felt like my 45 minute ride was taking forever. I kept looking at my watch and the time was crawling by. I did spin up's and thought I would die. When my ride was finally over, I realized something was terribly amiss. That's right. I watched almost an entire movie during a 45 minute ride and only afterwards wondered what the heck was going on! Hel-lo! Do you see that for each SECOND of my ride my watch was counting up to (at least!) 88?!!! Now I'm beginning to wonder if I had as good of a swim this morning as I thought I did!! DANG! (Although, Donna said I looked strong and my time seemed to match how I felt - UNLIKE the never-ending bike ride.) Has anyone ever had their trusty Timex Ironman watch freak the fuck out like this before?! (Must be a sign from the gods of Garmin to figure out my Forerunner already!)

Sadly, the time warp on the bike means I'm out of computer time for the day! (So race report and Sunday report tomorrow, I guess. What a strange way to procrastinate I've discovered.)
Peace out, my friends!

**Edited to add: John informs me I am an IDIOT. (Not in so many words. Actually he explained to me in much nicer and smaller words that this is how milliseconds* are SUPPOSED to work - using tens (or hundreds or base ten or whatever the hell), not sixties like normal minutes and seconds. Who knew? Everyone except me, obviously. Who thought it was a good idea to switch systems in the middle, anyway?? Don't they know my math brain doesn't work well during training even if you keep things predictable?! So how to explain my 45 minute ride taking up the better part of two hours? John says I must have ridden for an hour and forty-five minutes without noticing. (Picture me rolling my eyes at the concept of me not noticing the extra hour when I was looking at my watch every few minutes!) I explained to him that his theory also didn't work because when my timer has looped before, the hour takes the minute place and everything moves to the right with milliseconds being bumped off the screen. He then said I must have either stopped and restarted or maybe watched the movie on fast forward. I think I would have noticed John Cusack talking like Alvin the Chipmunk, but hey, I didn't notice an hour missing somewhere even though I was looking for it, so what do I know? The only non-Bermuda-triangle theory I can come up with now is that I must have repeatedly bumped my watch off and on. Gah. I'm glad my watch timer is working normally, but a wee bit sad that my brain is apparently a mess. I should delete this post and hide my goofiness from the world, but warts and all, eh?**
*Milliseconds? Centiseconds? I should go look it up and make it make sense in my brain so I don't go on being ignorant about this whole "how do we measure time" thing, but honestly I'm not gonna.

3 comments:

TriGirl Thea said...

cue the music for the Twilight Zone!

What the blank happened?

Maybe you were pedalling so fast you hit light speed or something?

Which if my high schoool physics serves me, this officially means that you are an hour younger than you would have been? Just think of the savings in the anti-wrinkle cream. Awesome!

Calyx Meredith said...

I know it will just *shock* you to find out that I took an extra language instead of physics in high school - so I will have to take your word that that's how it works. Besides - I LOVE your idea of me being an hour younger from riding so fast I warped time. Bwahahaha! (Instead of Back to the Future, "Bike to the Future"?) I think I'm going to chalk it up to "one of those weird things that happens only to me" and hope it doesn't happen again!

ShirleyPerly said...

Actually, I've accidentally hit the start/stop button on my Ironman watch numerous times from just bending my wrist too much. Today (as I have done on other days too) I accidentally wiped out all my recorded swim splits before I could record them. Luckily, I'd glanced at my watch before getting out of the pool and knew how far & long I'd swam. Might get a different watch when this thing finally dies ...