20150522

Crankin'!

I got up a little earlier than my "usual", although ten-fifteen minutes after my alarm went off (didn't want to jump right up, as the baby was not sleeping well, and almost went back to sleep.  Got lucky was only up that much late).

I hurried out about ten minutes later than I'd wanted to leave, and got going.

One thing that's happened the last several days is that I've gotten my heart rate up too high on the first hill away from the house, although I'm not sure if I repeated it today.  Basically, it felt like I probably did, but my heart rate meter was only reading 92, which is usually indicative of a problem with the meter.  So I'm truly unsure.

In any event, I decided to try to finish my figure eight route in the hour:fifty that I had, so I was trying to push as much as I could while keeping my heart rate down.  That mostly worked, although I did get over 130 a couple times, and spent almost eighteen minutes over 125bpm.  So it wasn't great, but probably wasn't terrible.

Also, I couldn't quite remember my splits on a couple parts of the ride, and decided to do the second-longest variant (I have four or five choices for the last five to eight miles).  That probably wasn't a terribly good choice, as I got back a few minutes later than intended, though it wasn't disastrous.

The total was 28.3 miles, over 1:56:54 (14.5 mph; not bad, although Cyclemeter said 15.03mph, and indicated about 16.75 mph over the first hour).  I'm not sure how I managed that speed; I was consistently pushing 130-140W@125bpm, which certainly helped.  But I don't know that that's a whole lot better than usual, and that is a much better speed.  Maybe I was just doing a better job of staying in an aerodynamic position?

Regardless of the why, I was certainly very happy with the result.  Average power was 115W, weighted to 116W (which shows there wasn't a lot of variation).  That's pretty awesome, actually.

The only bad thing was that two of the times I exceeded my heart rate budget were on downhills; that's a bit weird.  Maybe not bad, really, but definitely weird.

I was glad that I heeded the weather.  It was projecting 50F, and it was a little chillier than that, for which I dressed.  I wore my thermal bib shorts, my warm long-sleeve jersey, and a summer base layer.  And full-finger gloves.  That was a perfect fit, as I didn't get overheated, and didn't notice the cold (though my fingers were a tiny bit chilled when I finished; I only noticed when I put them in water to wash them right afterward).  It makes me inordinately happy, I think, when I nail that.

My one concern was that the jersey would be too heavy, especially with the base layer, but it was great.

Tomorrow will hopefully be the Saturday group ride, where I'll probably get my ass kicked again.  Sunday will be an early recovery ride, as we're meeting some friends at the Delaplane Strawberry festival.  We went to that a couple years ago, and it was fantastic.  I'm hoping to be able to get some similarly good pictures there (though I won't be able to enjoy the strawberries as much, alas.  Atkins is not a terribly good diet for that).  After that, we'll see.

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