The healthiest computer game

For my birthday, my parents gave me a Garmin Edge 305 bike computer.  It’s a pretty geeky toy, but well… if the shoe fits, right?  The computer has so many features it has taken me quite some time to get my arms around the whole thing.  As a matter of fact, I think I have only really put a “dent” in the feature list at this point.  Well, anyway… today I figured out how to “race myself”.  Well, in this case, we will call me “Virtual Me” since ultimately, I am a pound or 2 lighter than I used to be…. so I am now Mini-Me… and Maxi-Me sounds like…. eh… nevermind!

Anyway, you can set up a “Course” based on a past ride.  You start at your door and rock the house!  It has a little dude racing you.  You can watch your progress, see how far you are ahead, it will show you hills that are coming up … it’s REALLY FREEKIN COOL!  It also pushed me harder than I have gone before.  Next trip in won’t be as easy to kick my arse… wait, is that possible?

To put it all in perspective, today’s ride was 10 minutes faster than my last.  Over 24 miles, that’s about 2 mph faster than Friday!  (I did have my bag and didn’t have the power of 2 ninja’s in my back pocket on Friday, but I didn’t just coast to work.

It’s like my own little house of pain with a video game on my stem!  Very Very Very cool!  I think this will help me in my quest to fight global insanity!