Road Trip!

First road ride of the year! Thursday's workout called for 75 minutes of 73-81% max HR and a cadence between 90 and 110. That was going to be utterly monotonous on the trainer, especially since I haven't received my latest netflix dvd to distract myself. Fortunately the weather cooperated and by early afternoon the temperature had risen to a balmy 44 F with very little wind. A perfect chance for me to get outside and actually ride my bike. It's been really chilly here lately and not really conducive to riding outside so there was no way I was going to pass up this narrow window of opportunity.

The terrain around here is not condusive to being able to achieve both the cadence goals and the HR goals so I had to choose one or the other. I chose HR. The purpose of the training was endurance not technique so I preferred HR over keeping the cadence high. When possible I brought my cadence into line but I spent a lot more time looking down at the Garmin and willing the HR number not to pop over 81 and give me the dreaded: BEEP "Your HR exceeds desired value" message.

Don't pop! Don't pop! Damn, I popped :(. I popped over and under the zone a few times (typically ascending/descending a short steep hill) but I was actually pretty impressed with my ability to gage that effort.

While I didn't keep my cadence within the zone all the time, I did pedal constantly. My legs did feel the burn of constant motion which I'm telling myself was a good secondary goal. In the past I would coast the descents but yesterday I shifted into gears that allowed me to pedal on the descents as well, which is something my little book as suggested I should try to achieve.

The overall workout was a little ragged but not bad for my first time trying this. Lots to improve, lots to smooth out. Glad I got out rather than doing this inside on the trainer.

And so ends Week 2, the end of the endurance building segment. Time to move to LT work next week.

Distance: 33.40 km

Speed:  22.26 kmh

Cadence:  84 rpm

AVG HR:  155 bpm

Weight:  208.0 lbs