Monday, February 7, 2011

A day I shall call "awesome"

There are so many things to log in today's ride I don't know where to start. First, on the purely performance side of things, I finally broke the curse of February. As of today I've ridden further than I did the previous 2 Febs. combined (0 km in 2009, and 98 km in 2010). It's only Feb. 7th and I'm still motivated.

Second, I almost equalled my best time for this loop even though I did it in reverse and spend a good 2 minutes doing little slow circles idling at the bottom of a hill waiting for my interval on the garmin to begin @ the 10 minute mark. If I had gone straight at the course I'm sure I would have crushed the time.

Third, I did this loop in reverse in the hopes that the first "big" hill would last the required 10 minutes. It did not. I actually had a hard time keeping the cadence low enough while getting the HR into the desired zone on the "big hill' . This hill that used to scare me so much I started going the opposite way to avoid going up so early is now a pimple. Holy cow! This training stuff really works!!!I was not winded at the top. I was not dying. I actually was a little pissed it wasn't long enough and had to get into harder gears as I screamed over the flat to the next short hill.

 

One the learning how to train on the road side of the ledger, given the local terrain around here I'm going to have to adjust how I plan my workouts on the road. It just does not easily lend itself to RI's of long high cadences and the hills are too short for any sustained effort longer than 4-5 minutes (at least the first 2 hills going in either direction, maybe further out I'll find some). I'm having to elevate my cadence on the descents to keep my HR in the desired zone. I'm going to have to do a little testing with the garmin to see if I can find a solution that works a little better. Forceably spinning high cadences on ascents with I should be on a rest interval and bringing the HR down strained my right knee a little today I think (heat pack here I come).

I'm tickled with today's ride though! Felt very fast and it was over too soon.

Distance: 19.02 km

Speed:  26.26 kmh

Cadence:  76 rpm

AVG HR:  165 bpm

Weight:  207 lbs

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