Saturday was pretty frustrating, to start.
I got up on time, but puttered about a bit more than usual. So I got out of the house a few minutes later than I was hoping (I wanted to do some more warm-up). Just as I started the ride, however, I looked down and saw no heart rate indicator. Figuring that was a dead battery, I went back in and replaced the battery with another (of unknown capacity).
I got back out, and noticed that the new one was apparently already dead, but I didn't have enough time to go back inside and change the battery again. So I got going, and found that the power meter was already dead as well. Ugh. Now I was really pissed off, as the hard ride I was expecting was when I most want that data.
Well, I didn't have time, so I hurried to the meeting place. In fact, on the way I decided to hurry enough to attempt a new record on the one segment on the way. I died about two-thirds of the way through, but still beat my old PR by two seconds, which was enough to take me out of a tie for sixth there, and put me into fourth. That made me happy, as it was the one where I'd recently been pushed back from fifth to sixth.
When I got to the meeting place, there turned out to only be three others, and they were not the really strong riders who regularly show up. The upshot of that is that I ended up pulling for much of the ride (perhaps as much as half of it). Which I really didn't mind, but it definitely felt weird.
Still, it was a very good ride, and I had a lot of fun. There was one big climb, and I ended up setting a new PR on the bottom half of that (missed by a couple seconds on the overall climb), but I was dying by the middle. I powered on through, but it was a hard struggle, and I was not feeling good for the latter half. I also, probably obviously, was not going nearly as fast. But I was chasing one other guy who passed me halfway up, and that kept me from really taking it easy (and here is where I REALLY wish I had that power and heart-rate data).
The temperature was 50F-ish, dropping down to 46 for a bit. I think all I wore was a summer base layer and summer jersey, and I was pretty comfortable.
I did have to do the last few miles on my own, as the others went down to Haines Point to do a lap, but I couldn't join them as I needed to get home. I did make it home on time, so things worked out well.
All in all, it was a very satisfying ride. I blew up a couple of times (and narrowly avoided a third time), but I wasn't upset about them. And more importantly, I was able to recover pretty quickly each time.
I ended up doing 35 miles, in just under two hours (17.6mph avg, including the little bit of warm-up and the slow finish. Still, a bit less than I expected). That included 1500' of elevation.
Sunday, I was obviously going to be taking it easy. In fact, I woke up at the normal time and deliberately went back to sleep for a bit (I was pretty tired, plus I figured I needed to get back a little early, so I didn't want to do a really long ride).
In the event, I did almost twenty-two miles, taking my normal 18-mile loop and going a bit further down the W&OD than usual. It took an hour and thirty-three, with almost 1100' of elevation. The 13.9mph speed wasn't great, although I had to be careful because I again didn't have any data (another dead battery on my heart rate meter, plus my RFLKT+ wasn't pairing, and I didn't have time to debug that. I ended up rushing out the door as it was).
The ride itself was pretty decent, and I ended up getting back at a decent time, although we were still late leaving for the Strawberry Festival. The only good thing there was that we found the friends with whom we were meeting up right as we got there, but we didn't get to spend nearly as much time with them as we'd hoped.
Still, the kids had fun there, and I got some good shots of raptors (and a just-molted screech owl), so it wasn't a complete loss.
Yesterday was still taking it easy. I did get everything working before leaving (and did determine that it wasn't a battery problem with the RFLKT+, which surprised me), so I had full data. It was the normal 18-mile loop, which I got done in an hour:eighteen. That was 14.1mph, which made me pretty happy.
I've found, the last couple days, that I can push about 130W while keeping my heart rate in the target range, which is a big improvement on what I was doing a couple months ago (and a little bit of an improvement on where I was a couple months before that).
Getting back to yesterday, I did 18.3 miles and 1050' of climbing. I averaged 111W over that time, which isn't bad. I did a pretty good job with my heart rate, keeping it to 131bpm max, while averaging 121. And that's with just under five minutes over my target; still room for improvement, but not bad. Overall, I was pretty happy with the results, and my timing worked out pretty well for getting home.
Today, took it easy again. I actually woke up early (had to go to the bathroom half an hour before my usual wake-up time, and decided to stay up). Unfortunately, I was moving slowly, and only got out the door about twenty minutes early.
I decided to do my Falls Church, Arlington, Alexandria loop in its shortest incarnation. Actually, I was going to do the figure eight, but decided to cut it back to just the loop as I was heading home. Good choice, as I got back just about exactly on time.
I had some equipment annoyance, as my heart rate meter was pegged at 97bpm for the first mile or so. Finally, I stopped and rubbed some spit on the sensors, as I'd recently read would help. It did, and got the meter working right away. So I don't know if I exceeded my goal in that mile, but at least I know what happened later.
One bit of amusement; as I was doing the long climb up S 31st St in Shirlington (where I lived, many moons ago), a guy passed me on his mountain bike. I don't know if we took the same route between, but I caught up with him a couple miles later as he was gasping and puffing hard. I assume he either had to slow down, or turned off shortly thereafter, because I didn't see him again (and he must not be on Strava, as he doesn't show up in my flyby map, alas). Still, whatever the reason, it felt good.
The ride was 23.4 miles, and took one hour:thirty-seven. I had almost 900' of elevation, which is actually pretty low for me, these days (I did finish the May climbing challenge already, which feels pretty good. Now I just need to finish the MTS one, which I think I will clear). Anyway, that distance and time works out to 14.5mph, which is awesome. And I did it while pushing 105W, which is also pretty nice.
Heart-rate-wise, it was definitely a mixed bag. I did well on the first half (except the quarter mile catching that guy and a few hundred yards after, where I somehow ended up at 135bpm. I'm still not sure how, as it didn't feel like I was pushing at all hard). The second half, however, was all over the place. My max was lower, but it felt like I kept finding myself at 127, 128bpm. Very annoying.
Overall, I spent fourteen minutes over my target, which is not good. I suspect I only spent a few seconds over 130bpm, which wouldn't be too bad, if accurate, but I don't know.
I was pleased to get those miles in and get home in time, however.
Tomorrow, I'm going to do that group ride again, and I'll be riding harder, I think. There's a loop in Herndon, at the end, and if I'm feeling ok, I'm really going to try to kill it on that segment. And hopefully all the equipment will be working, again. The only bad part is that it's supposed to rain; that'll make it a much less nice ride than it's been the last couple of weeks.
Actually, I'm a little worried that it'll be too warm for my rain pants and jacket; we'll have to see how that works out.
Showing posts with label battery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label battery. Show all posts
20150526
20150512
Moving along
Been a little busy, lately, and haven't had much time to update.
Friday, I didn't have a lot of time, and just did my normal 18 mile ride just to keep going. It wasn't a terribly interesting ride, except for the one person who decided that they didn't need to wait for me to go by before turning. Thankfully, there was an open lane, and nobody running up immediately from behind. So I drifted over into the other lane, yelled at the inattentive woman, then got back into the bike lane.
It turned out not to be that bad, but my adrenaline spiked all to hell. So my heart rate spiked all the way up over 150bpm when I'd been doing a pretty good job at keeping it down beforehand. Otherwise? Nice weather, no power (just got the second warranty replacement yesterday; will discuss more later), good ride.
Saturday, we did do the group ride, and it was another loop up into MD and DC. It was a fairly hard ride, and went well. I was rather proud of myself; a couple of people got dropped (comment when I asked about waiting, "He knows the way home". ok, then), but I wasn't one of them. I did fall behind twice, but managed to catch up both times, and went strong otherwise.
I had power for the first ten minutes (warm-up, basically), but that was it. We averaged 19.2mph, which includes the warm-up time (which was at about 13mph; I should set a lap, next time. A rough approximation is 19.9mph for the hard part; I like Strava's tools for that sort of thing), so it was a decent ride. That was over 38.4 miles, with 1500' of elevation. I managed over 41 minutes in Z4, with another 3 in Z5, so that was great.
And at the end of the ride, there was one segment that I did pretty decently on the last time I rode it, but that I had never really tried to kill. This time, I pushed pretty hard on that segment (not as hard as I could have, because it started earlier than I remembered), and managed fourth overall. Rockin'!
The only bad part of that was that nobody wanted to try to keep up, so I had no company on the last mile or two. But overall, I was extremely happy with the ride; I even pushed the pace a few times (though I wasn't really looking to do that, generally; I really just wanted to show that I could keep up).
That night, we spent the night in a hotel not far from home; my wife wanted to get out of the house for a day for Mother's Day. Overall, that was a very mixed bag (I seriously killed my diet; I'll talk about that later), but it did have the effect of putting me onto a different route for my morning ride. On a weekend, when I had a bit more time.
So Sunday's ride was a slow recovery ride that mostly went along the W&OD path. I picked it up at Gallows Rd, and followed it out to Sterling (the road before Rt 28). My original plan was to go outward for an hour, maybe an hour and ten minutes, then turn around. I remembered that as being predominantly uphill.
But I made really good time. When it got really close to an hour, I decided to turn around at the 16-mile point, since I'd made really good time. When I got to that, I stretched it out one or two more tenths of a mile to get to an overpass.
When I turned around, I realized that the reason I'd made such good time was that I'd misremembered and it was predominantly downhill. So now I was going uphill, and wasn't going to match my speed outbound. That could be bad.
So I pushed my heart rate a little higher (130bpm target, and slipped a little higher quite a few times), to try to maintain my speed. I made it in a few minutes over two hours, for an average of 15.7mph. I was pretty happy about that, and about the 850' of elevation, but a tad annoyed that my heart rate was so high. I was hoping for no bad effects from that.
Oh, and no surprise, but no power data.
Monday was another easy day, though I again got my heart rate a little higher than I wanted. I'd left a few minutes later than planned, and spent the whole ride worrying about getting back late. I still managed an average of only 112bpm, which was good, but with a max of 130bpm, which wasn't.
I made it back at my target time, which did make me happy.
There was one jackass, though, who passed me in Falls Church, who almost hit another biker (coming from the other direction) while passing me. Then, when we got to the next street, I was watching him as he was turning, instead of looking for cars. That almost worked poorly for both of us; he skidded into his turn as he had to slam on his brakes, while turning, to keep from hitting an oncoming SUV. And I was going too fast, and went right into the path of the same SUV (though it was already basically stopped in avoiding him). All in all, the situation didn't work out well for anyone involved. I was a little disappointed to not see him in the Strava fly-by feature; he really needs to be more careful so he doesn't get anyone (including himself) killed or maimed.
Other than that, it was a very quiet ride, and I enjoyed it. One thing that was odd was that I didn't change anything, but did have power data for the ride. Weird how that works.
Yesterday, though, the replacement power meter did come, so I installed it last night. I couldn't check its firmware since my phone was charging, so I planned to do that in the morning.
In the morning, though, I overslept by twenty minutes or so. Not good. I rushed out the door, slowing down before really starting to take a minute to connect with the power meter. Then I went into the hills to abuse myself.
Several interesting things about that. One, it was basically light out when I started (nice change). Two, I saw several other bikers while I was riding.
With the light, I was able to easily set a PR on the long descent along 26th St, especially since I didn't blow the shifting going into the little ring when the steep hill bottomed out. Showing no regard for life or limb, I actually hit 42mph on one particularly steep section where I have previously sat on my brakes. Neat. Plus, I moved up from 19th to 6th overall with the run. Unexpected.
Coming at such good speed, I got a good push into the first hill. With that push, I stayed on the big ring all the way to the top of the hill (though I slowed a lot as I hit the top; I forgot that segment went a bit past that), despite the 8% grade. Frankly, I was shocked that I was able to do it, and I improved in the standings there from 160th to 20th. I knocked ten seconds off my previous PR (1:12), despite the slow-down. Pretty cool.
That was pretty much it for interesting results (although I did get my second-best time ever on the next hill, as well), but I pushed on through for about 11.5 miles of hard hill-riding. Unfortunately, that number is a little suspect, as I forgot to hit the lap button until I was a couple tenths of a mile past where I'd meant to hit it (and wasn't doing much more than coasting over those tenths).
Despite that, I managed 17.8mph over those forty minutes, with twenty-seven of them at or over threshold (per HRM, not power meter). That made me pretty happy, as did the fact that I several times blew away other bikers on the hills (though it's true that the only other riders I saw who were probably serious were going the other way the one time I saw them). Still, it was nice not to have to hold back.
After the hills, I went on another sort-of loop, most of which was over part of my 18-mile route, and with some meandering at the end. I finished with eighteen miles and change.
What really pissed me off, though, was that the power meter only worked at all for the first eighteen minutes (with some serious drop-outs in that time) and about half of the last eighteen. Adding a tiny bit to the annoyance, my heart rate meter dropped out for the last nineteen as well. At least that was there for the hard-riding portion, which is where I really need it.
So I need to replace the battery in the HRM; not a big deal. I checked the power meter's firmware when I got home, and it was up to date. I did a zero-reset on it and paired it with ANT+ (stages is far more reliable on ANT+) before putting the bike away. If it doesn't work over the entirety of the next several days, I'll be talking to Stages about getting my money back. The meter needs to be reliable to have any value at all, and thus far, it hasn't been.
Tomorrow will be an easy ride; maybe meeting with a group in Vienna (depends on if I wake up early enough) and riding out to Herndon. Should be fun, if I can make it. Thursday and Friday should also be easy rides, so I'm ready for the tough ride on Saturday.
Friday, I didn't have a lot of time, and just did my normal 18 mile ride just to keep going. It wasn't a terribly interesting ride, except for the one person who decided that they didn't need to wait for me to go by before turning. Thankfully, there was an open lane, and nobody running up immediately from behind. So I drifted over into the other lane, yelled at the inattentive woman, then got back into the bike lane.
It turned out not to be that bad, but my adrenaline spiked all to hell. So my heart rate spiked all the way up over 150bpm when I'd been doing a pretty good job at keeping it down beforehand. Otherwise? Nice weather, no power (just got the second warranty replacement yesterday; will discuss more later), good ride.
Saturday, we did do the group ride, and it was another loop up into MD and DC. It was a fairly hard ride, and went well. I was rather proud of myself; a couple of people got dropped (comment when I asked about waiting, "He knows the way home". ok, then), but I wasn't one of them. I did fall behind twice, but managed to catch up both times, and went strong otherwise.
I had power for the first ten minutes (warm-up, basically), but that was it. We averaged 19.2mph, which includes the warm-up time (which was at about 13mph; I should set a lap, next time. A rough approximation is 19.9mph for the hard part; I like Strava's tools for that sort of thing), so it was a decent ride. That was over 38.4 miles, with 1500' of elevation. I managed over 41 minutes in Z4, with another 3 in Z5, so that was great.
And at the end of the ride, there was one segment that I did pretty decently on the last time I rode it, but that I had never really tried to kill. This time, I pushed pretty hard on that segment (not as hard as I could have, because it started earlier than I remembered), and managed fourth overall. Rockin'!
The only bad part of that was that nobody wanted to try to keep up, so I had no company on the last mile or two. But overall, I was extremely happy with the ride; I even pushed the pace a few times (though I wasn't really looking to do that, generally; I really just wanted to show that I could keep up).
That night, we spent the night in a hotel not far from home; my wife wanted to get out of the house for a day for Mother's Day. Overall, that was a very mixed bag (I seriously killed my diet; I'll talk about that later), but it did have the effect of putting me onto a different route for my morning ride. On a weekend, when I had a bit more time.
So Sunday's ride was a slow recovery ride that mostly went along the W&OD path. I picked it up at Gallows Rd, and followed it out to Sterling (the road before Rt 28). My original plan was to go outward for an hour, maybe an hour and ten minutes, then turn around. I remembered that as being predominantly uphill.
But I made really good time. When it got really close to an hour, I decided to turn around at the 16-mile point, since I'd made really good time. When I got to that, I stretched it out one or two more tenths of a mile to get to an overpass.
When I turned around, I realized that the reason I'd made such good time was that I'd misremembered and it was predominantly downhill. So now I was going uphill, and wasn't going to match my speed outbound. That could be bad.
So I pushed my heart rate a little higher (130bpm target, and slipped a little higher quite a few times), to try to maintain my speed. I made it in a few minutes over two hours, for an average of 15.7mph. I was pretty happy about that, and about the 850' of elevation, but a tad annoyed that my heart rate was so high. I was hoping for no bad effects from that.
Oh, and no surprise, but no power data.
Monday was another easy day, though I again got my heart rate a little higher than I wanted. I'd left a few minutes later than planned, and spent the whole ride worrying about getting back late. I still managed an average of only 112bpm, which was good, but with a max of 130bpm, which wasn't.
I made it back at my target time, which did make me happy.
There was one jackass, though, who passed me in Falls Church, who almost hit another biker (coming from the other direction) while passing me. Then, when we got to the next street, I was watching him as he was turning, instead of looking for cars. That almost worked poorly for both of us; he skidded into his turn as he had to slam on his brakes, while turning, to keep from hitting an oncoming SUV. And I was going too fast, and went right into the path of the same SUV (though it was already basically stopped in avoiding him). All in all, the situation didn't work out well for anyone involved. I was a little disappointed to not see him in the Strava fly-by feature; he really needs to be more careful so he doesn't get anyone (including himself) killed or maimed.
Other than that, it was a very quiet ride, and I enjoyed it. One thing that was odd was that I didn't change anything, but did have power data for the ride. Weird how that works.
Yesterday, though, the replacement power meter did come, so I installed it last night. I couldn't check its firmware since my phone was charging, so I planned to do that in the morning.
In the morning, though, I overslept by twenty minutes or so. Not good. I rushed out the door, slowing down before really starting to take a minute to connect with the power meter. Then I went into the hills to abuse myself.
Several interesting things about that. One, it was basically light out when I started (nice change). Two, I saw several other bikers while I was riding.
With the light, I was able to easily set a PR on the long descent along 26th St, especially since I didn't blow the shifting going into the little ring when the steep hill bottomed out. Showing no regard for life or limb, I actually hit 42mph on one particularly steep section where I have previously sat on my brakes. Neat. Plus, I moved up from 19th to 6th overall with the run. Unexpected.
Coming at such good speed, I got a good push into the first hill. With that push, I stayed on the big ring all the way to the top of the hill (though I slowed a lot as I hit the top; I forgot that segment went a bit past that), despite the 8% grade. Frankly, I was shocked that I was able to do it, and I improved in the standings there from 160th to 20th. I knocked ten seconds off my previous PR (1:12), despite the slow-down. Pretty cool.
That was pretty much it for interesting results (although I did get my second-best time ever on the next hill, as well), but I pushed on through for about 11.5 miles of hard hill-riding. Unfortunately, that number is a little suspect, as I forgot to hit the lap button until I was a couple tenths of a mile past where I'd meant to hit it (and wasn't doing much more than coasting over those tenths).
Despite that, I managed 17.8mph over those forty minutes, with twenty-seven of them at or over threshold (per HRM, not power meter). That made me pretty happy, as did the fact that I several times blew away other bikers on the hills (though it's true that the only other riders I saw who were probably serious were going the other way the one time I saw them). Still, it was nice not to have to hold back.
After the hills, I went on another sort-of loop, most of which was over part of my 18-mile route, and with some meandering at the end. I finished with eighteen miles and change.
What really pissed me off, though, was that the power meter only worked at all for the first eighteen minutes (with some serious drop-outs in that time) and about half of the last eighteen. Adding a tiny bit to the annoyance, my heart rate meter dropped out for the last nineteen as well. At least that was there for the hard-riding portion, which is where I really need it.
So I need to replace the battery in the HRM; not a big deal. I checked the power meter's firmware when I got home, and it was up to date. I did a zero-reset on it and paired it with ANT+ (stages is far more reliable on ANT+) before putting the bike away. If it doesn't work over the entirety of the next several days, I'll be talking to Stages about getting my money back. The meter needs to be reliable to have any value at all, and thus far, it hasn't been.
Tomorrow will be an easy ride; maybe meeting with a group in Vienna (depends on if I wake up early enough) and riding out to Herndon. Should be fun, if I can make it. Thursday and Friday should also be easy rides, so I'm ready for the tough ride on Saturday.
20150428
The hills are alive...
Okay, that title is probably a little too cheerful. I decided I needed to push a bit, this morning, although I realized as soon as I got moving that I was a bit sore. So it might not have been the best of decisions, but I went with it.
I overslept by a few minutes, but tried to keep that from getting in my way. I even had trouble with finding my phone, which delayed me a couple minutes (problem with getting ready without lights on. Don't want to wake anyone, after all).
One thing I did do, that worked well. When I had to take my shoes (and booties) off, I tried a new way I'd heard about in comments on a particular pair of booties. Instead of getting my shoes on, then putting the booties over the whole thing - which does work, but can easily tear up aero booties - I put the booties on, and pulled them up over my ankles, putting my feet through the cleat holes. Then I pulled the heel down over the shoe, then pulled the toe over the shoe.
Anyway, I got out on the road a few minutes later than I'd intended, and headed for the hills to do something approaching intervals. I did ok on the first two hills, but I died pretty soon after that. Still, I kept pushing through them for forty-ish minutes. Terrible times, and very sore muscles, but will hopefully make me stronger.
To try to counteract the sore muscles, I kept riding for another half hour or so after I stopped pushing. We'll see how that works out.
That all ended up with a bit more than 18 miles, almost 1500' of elevation, and an average speed of 14.6mph (16.5 in the 40-odd minutes of pushing).
The one thing that really torqued me was that I wasn't able to see the power meter for the entire ride. Not sure what was happening, but that's a new battery. Need to follow up with Stages pronto.
As for tomorrow, it'll be another easy day. I'll probably try to get up a little early and do 25-ish miles. The temperature is supposed to be in the high 40s, perhaps warm enough for me to just go with bibs and a short-sleeve shirt (maybe with a sleeveless base-layer underneath). Today was 45, and I went with summer gloves and a windbreaker, which worked out well.
I overslept by a few minutes, but tried to keep that from getting in my way. I even had trouble with finding my phone, which delayed me a couple minutes (problem with getting ready without lights on. Don't want to wake anyone, after all).
One thing I did do, that worked well. When I had to take my shoes (and booties) off, I tried a new way I'd heard about in comments on a particular pair of booties. Instead of getting my shoes on, then putting the booties over the whole thing - which does work, but can easily tear up aero booties - I put the booties on, and pulled them up over my ankles, putting my feet through the cleat holes. Then I pulled the heel down over the shoe, then pulled the toe over the shoe.
Anyway, I got out on the road a few minutes later than I'd intended, and headed for the hills to do something approaching intervals. I did ok on the first two hills, but I died pretty soon after that. Still, I kept pushing through them for forty-ish minutes. Terrible times, and very sore muscles, but will hopefully make me stronger.
To try to counteract the sore muscles, I kept riding for another half hour or so after I stopped pushing. We'll see how that works out.
That all ended up with a bit more than 18 miles, almost 1500' of elevation, and an average speed of 14.6mph (16.5 in the 40-odd minutes of pushing).
The one thing that really torqued me was that I wasn't able to see the power meter for the entire ride. Not sure what was happening, but that's a new battery. Need to follow up with Stages pronto.
As for tomorrow, it'll be another easy day. I'll probably try to get up a little early and do 25-ish miles. The temperature is supposed to be in the high 40s, perhaps warm enough for me to just go with bibs and a short-sleeve shirt (maybe with a sleeveless base-layer underneath). Today was 45, and I went with summer gloves and a windbreaker, which worked out well.
20150423
Slow figure eight
I did get up early, this morning, and headed out on a big loop. It went very quietly, for the most part, although I did have to turn around only a quarter-mile in. I'd looked at the power meter yesterday, and left the cap and battery off. I was miffed that the battery was already dead (only an hour and change of run time. A new record. I've gotten in touch with Stages about it, so we'll see how they handle it). The only bits of excitement within the ride itself came when I was passing the airport, and another cyclist passed me.
I wonder what other people think; when he was just behind me, I half-turned and said, "Good morning". Am I the only one who thinks he was an ass not to respond at all? In any event, he didn't seem to be going a whole lot faster than me, but I quickly realized I wasn't going to keep up without pushing my heart rate way higher than I wanted to do (and, in fact, I accidentally pushed it up to 132 while verifying that). Still, I was amused that, even after getting my heart rate back down to 120-ish, he didn't make it out of easy sight until he turned off to take the 14th St Bridge, a mile or two later.
Actually, one other piece was that I stopped three different times, just after that, to take pictures. I really wish I'd had a better camera than my phone. The shot above isn't bad, but could be better, especially if I'd brought the tripod. Still, I was glad to be in position to get what I got - to quote the old photojournalism maxim, "F/8 and be there".
The other "exciting" part of the ride came just as I was riding up the hill to the gate at Ft Myer. Some jackass decided that he needed to fly by me with about a foot of clearance. I was irritated, but going to let it go, until I realized he was going to the gate. So I sped up and gave him a little piece of my mind while he was at the guard shack with his window open. That spiked my heart rate up all the way to 163, which surprised me, given it was only 30-ish seconds of hard exertion.
I was pleasantly surprised to get it back down into my target range in only a few minutes, afterward.
Anyway, the incident, combined with a couple other recent happenings, has me reconsidering getting a GoPro, or something similar. I really don't appreciate such behavior. I think I'll talk to my dad about it.
Other than that, a very pleasant ride, and some decent miles in. For the first time, I'll finish all the Strava challenges this month. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'll finish the MTS challenge with several days to go. Decent ride tomorrow, long rides on the weekend, maybe a couple miles with my daughter as well. We'll see.
Oh, and I signed up for the Velobici challenge yesterday (veloviewer mentioned it). It started March 8th, and I was amused to see I've already met the mileage target for it. It's a little bit of a waste, though, as I'm not impressed with their goods. Plus, while I'll do more than respectably, I don't have any chance of winning any of the categories (though I might make top ten in nighttime miles, and could move close to that in the steel category by renaming my bike. Oh, and I figured out a way to cheat so I could reasonably compete in the 'most PRs' category. I see people there with more PRs than miles, so I wouldn't be alone in that, for sure).
And Competitive Cyclist disappointed me by putting their "dollars for hours" program on hold. I guess the demand was much higher than they anticipated, and I think they just couldn't keep up with entering people's miles in the system. Still, I got forty-ish dollars in credit while it lasted, and put a few extra miles in than I would have done, so it wasn't a complete waste, even if it doesn't come back. I hope it does, though; I loved the idea.
Getting back to the actual biking, tomorrow will be another easy day; I might even repeat today's ride, taking my Coolpix A to get some better sunrise shots (though I'll need to take the tripod to make significant improvements; HDRs don't work all that great without that).
Then Saturday should be another hard group ride; hopefully I'll be fully recovered by then. Either way, it should be fun, I think.
And hopefully the Caps can put together a much better game tonight, and win. Go Caps!
I wonder what other people think; when he was just behind me, I half-turned and said, "Good morning". Am I the only one who thinks he was an ass not to respond at all? In any event, he didn't seem to be going a whole lot faster than me, but I quickly realized I wasn't going to keep up without pushing my heart rate way higher than I wanted to do (and, in fact, I accidentally pushed it up to 132 while verifying that). Still, I was amused that, even after getting my heart rate back down to 120-ish, he didn't make it out of easy sight until he turned off to take the 14th St Bridge, a mile or two later.
Actually, one other piece was that I stopped three different times, just after that, to take pictures. I really wish I'd had a better camera than my phone. The shot above isn't bad, but could be better, especially if I'd brought the tripod. Still, I was glad to be in position to get what I got - to quote the old photojournalism maxim, "F/8 and be there".
The other "exciting" part of the ride came just as I was riding up the hill to the gate at Ft Myer. Some jackass decided that he needed to fly by me with about a foot of clearance. I was irritated, but going to let it go, until I realized he was going to the gate. So I sped up and gave him a little piece of my mind while he was at the guard shack with his window open. That spiked my heart rate up all the way to 163, which surprised me, given it was only 30-ish seconds of hard exertion.
I was pleasantly surprised to get it back down into my target range in only a few minutes, afterward.
Anyway, the incident, combined with a couple other recent happenings, has me reconsidering getting a GoPro, or something similar. I really don't appreciate such behavior. I think I'll talk to my dad about it.
Other than that, a very pleasant ride, and some decent miles in. For the first time, I'll finish all the Strava challenges this month. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'll finish the MTS challenge with several days to go. Decent ride tomorrow, long rides on the weekend, maybe a couple miles with my daughter as well. We'll see.
Oh, and I signed up for the Velobici challenge yesterday (veloviewer mentioned it). It started March 8th, and I was amused to see I've already met the mileage target for it. It's a little bit of a waste, though, as I'm not impressed with their goods. Plus, while I'll do more than respectably, I don't have any chance of winning any of the categories (though I might make top ten in nighttime miles, and could move close to that in the steel category by renaming my bike. Oh, and I figured out a way to cheat so I could reasonably compete in the 'most PRs' category. I see people there with more PRs than miles, so I wouldn't be alone in that, for sure).
And Competitive Cyclist disappointed me by putting their "dollars for hours" program on hold. I guess the demand was much higher than they anticipated, and I think they just couldn't keep up with entering people's miles in the system. Still, I got forty-ish dollars in credit while it lasted, and put a few extra miles in than I would have done, so it wasn't a complete waste, even if it doesn't come back. I hope it does, though; I loved the idea.
Getting back to the actual biking, tomorrow will be another easy day; I might even repeat today's ride, taking my Coolpix A to get some better sunrise shots (though I'll need to take the tripod to make significant improvements; HDRs don't work all that great without that).
Then Saturday should be another hard group ride; hopefully I'll be fully recovered by then. Either way, it should be fun, I think.
And hopefully the Caps can put together a much better game tonight, and win. Go Caps!
20150420
Lots of pedals
I slept in a little bit Saturday, and did meet up for the group ride I've been trying to do the last several weekends.
When we met up, there turned out to be seven other guys, only two of whom I knew (and one other I'd met once). When we got moving, I ended up (accidentally) at the back, which I was ok with, given how much I'd slowed the group in earlier rides.
We cruised pretty easily across Chain Bridge and into DC, and I was still hanging on at the back. But then we did the climb up Arizona Ave, and the guys I was immediately following (I eventually noticed) were falling behind the guys in front. I decided to pass the four guys right in front of me, and catch up to the ones in front. From there, we continued up MacArthur Blvd to Goldsboro.
We got caught at a traffic light on Goldsboro, at River (I think), where I ended up at the back again. It wasn't, perhaps, as bad as the first time, but a climb started right after, and the same guys started falling behind again. This time, I didn't wait, and closed the gap with the guys in front.
From that point on, I rarely led (only thrice pulling), but I stayed in the front three. What surprised me was that, except when I was pulling, it wasn't a terribly strenuous ride. I wish I'd had power data, but the power meter died only a minute or two into the ride. I really need to get in touch with Stages, because this time it was a brand-new battery, not one that had been sitting around the house for a couple of years.
Anyway, the ride ended up at 96 minutes for 31 miles, which is damn-sure better than I could've done on my own. And the times I was pulling, those were very tough. I actually kept my heart rate over 180 for a couple of minutes at a time, which is far better than I can normally do.
I set a whole slew of PRs, which was not a surprise. What did surprise me was that the PRs on the segments I regularly ride were by very small margins. For instance, the climb from the cemetary to the courthouse, on which I'd set a new PR only a few days before: two of us went ahead of the group to attack that. We charged up, and it felt good when we made it to the top. But I only beat my record from the other day by a couple seconds, and I was actually slower on the last ascent (despite hitting a higher heart rate; actually saw 190 flash across the screen).
In any event, it was a very fun ride, and it really felt good to not be the one holding up the group. And it felt pretty good to be pulling for a bit, too. Looking forward to more of that.
Despite the fact that it didn't feel all that strenuous when we were riding, and not much right after we were done, either, my legs were a bit tired, later. Regardless of whether that would have been the case, though, yesterday was always going to be an easy day. The only question was how long it was going to go.
The answer was that I got up early (yes, even for me), and went for nearly three hours. I went all the way down to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge (though not over), then back up and all the way west to Idylwood Rd. I was a bit surprised to find that all of that was a bit less than 1300' of elevation, but it did cover 38 miles (I probably should have stretched a little to hit 40, but I was worried about time. I ended up having the time, but I wasn't sure of that until after I'd finished).
The one big irritation was that I forgot to put a new battery in the power meter, so I didn't have power or cadence data. Also, I didn't do quite as well on heart rate (though at least a minute or two of that was deliberate), but it's impossible to say exactly how well.
When I first looked down at the heart rate (just a minute in), it said 120, which would be weird, but not inconceivable. Half a minute later, it read 132. Again, conceivable, though a bit more weird, since I hadn't been pushing in the interim. Half a minute later, it said 183, which was impossible (I wasn't pushing anywhere near hard enough to get there), and a minute after that, it said 219 (I have never managed to get my heart rate that high, so far as I know).
It stayed at 219 for a couple of minutes, then dropped back into a sane reading, and mostly stayed reasonable for the rest of the ride. But I did see a couple of impossibly high readings (153, briefly, seconds before dropping back to 115. It also apparently spiked to 202 at one point, without me noticing. And later on, it went all the way to 215 for a while). Given all that noise, I can't say how much time I spent over target heart rate, but my guess would be three to four minutes, total.
The depressing part of maintaining that strict heart-rate limit, though, is that I was passed on hills by seriously overweight people who were pushing themselves. I could have tripled (maybe even quadrupled) my speed, which would have been very satisfying, but I held myself back. It was definitely annoying, however.
Still, I felt good at the end of the ride, and I got home about fifteen minutes earlier than I'd really planned (which was probably a good thing). I was still a little sore, later in the day, but only a little.
Oh, and I haven't felt much like it, but I've forced myself to do my tabata workout each of the last several nights, and that has helped, I think. It doesn't last long enough to create lasting soreness of its own, but I do feel good (if very tired) at the end, after I tag five minutes or so of stretching onto it.
Which brings me to today. It was always going to be a fairly gentle ride, but after looking at the weather yesterday, I decided that Tuesday would be my day off for the week. Which meant that I wanted to push myself even less today. Well, not less strenuous on a minute-by-minute basis, since the whole point of the easy rides is that they aren't strenuous, but less distance.
So I did my recently-normal 15 mile course that has almost 900' of elevation. And I did remember to put a new battery in the power meter, so I had power/cadence data. We'll see if the battery lasts through tomorrow's ride.
The point being, it was easy, I enjoyed it (it was close to meditative), and I got back on time (I didn't wake up early). I kept my heart rate within target range for all but 35 seconds, and maxed at 128bpm. All good numbers.
So the plan, going forward, is to do a long ride tomorrow; something at least sixty miles (and 80-100 would be better). I haven't figured out the timing, or an exact plan, but that's the rough outline. Then I'll probably do gentle rides Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, preparing for the group ride on Saturday (which will hopefully work out again).
When we met up, there turned out to be seven other guys, only two of whom I knew (and one other I'd met once). When we got moving, I ended up (accidentally) at the back, which I was ok with, given how much I'd slowed the group in earlier rides.
We cruised pretty easily across Chain Bridge and into DC, and I was still hanging on at the back. But then we did the climb up Arizona Ave, and the guys I was immediately following (I eventually noticed) were falling behind the guys in front. I decided to pass the four guys right in front of me, and catch up to the ones in front. From there, we continued up MacArthur Blvd to Goldsboro.
We got caught at a traffic light on Goldsboro, at River (I think), where I ended up at the back again. It wasn't, perhaps, as bad as the first time, but a climb started right after, and the same guys started falling behind again. This time, I didn't wait, and closed the gap with the guys in front.
From that point on, I rarely led (only thrice pulling), but I stayed in the front three. What surprised me was that, except when I was pulling, it wasn't a terribly strenuous ride. I wish I'd had power data, but the power meter died only a minute or two into the ride. I really need to get in touch with Stages, because this time it was a brand-new battery, not one that had been sitting around the house for a couple of years.
Anyway, the ride ended up at 96 minutes for 31 miles, which is damn-sure better than I could've done on my own. And the times I was pulling, those were very tough. I actually kept my heart rate over 180 for a couple of minutes at a time, which is far better than I can normally do.
I set a whole slew of PRs, which was not a surprise. What did surprise me was that the PRs on the segments I regularly ride were by very small margins. For instance, the climb from the cemetary to the courthouse, on which I'd set a new PR only a few days before: two of us went ahead of the group to attack that. We charged up, and it felt good when we made it to the top. But I only beat my record from the other day by a couple seconds, and I was actually slower on the last ascent (despite hitting a higher heart rate; actually saw 190 flash across the screen).
In any event, it was a very fun ride, and it really felt good to not be the one holding up the group. And it felt pretty good to be pulling for a bit, too. Looking forward to more of that.
Despite the fact that it didn't feel all that strenuous when we were riding, and not much right after we were done, either, my legs were a bit tired, later. Regardless of whether that would have been the case, though, yesterday was always going to be an easy day. The only question was how long it was going to go.
The answer was that I got up early (yes, even for me), and went for nearly three hours. I went all the way down to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge (though not over), then back up and all the way west to Idylwood Rd. I was a bit surprised to find that all of that was a bit less than 1300' of elevation, but it did cover 38 miles (I probably should have stretched a little to hit 40, but I was worried about time. I ended up having the time, but I wasn't sure of that until after I'd finished).
The one big irritation was that I forgot to put a new battery in the power meter, so I didn't have power or cadence data. Also, I didn't do quite as well on heart rate (though at least a minute or two of that was deliberate), but it's impossible to say exactly how well.
When I first looked down at the heart rate (just a minute in), it said 120, which would be weird, but not inconceivable. Half a minute later, it read 132. Again, conceivable, though a bit more weird, since I hadn't been pushing in the interim. Half a minute later, it said 183, which was impossible (I wasn't pushing anywhere near hard enough to get there), and a minute after that, it said 219 (I have never managed to get my heart rate that high, so far as I know).
It stayed at 219 for a couple of minutes, then dropped back into a sane reading, and mostly stayed reasonable for the rest of the ride. But I did see a couple of impossibly high readings (153, briefly, seconds before dropping back to 115. It also apparently spiked to 202 at one point, without me noticing. And later on, it went all the way to 215 for a while). Given all that noise, I can't say how much time I spent over target heart rate, but my guess would be three to four minutes, total.
The depressing part of maintaining that strict heart-rate limit, though, is that I was passed on hills by seriously overweight people who were pushing themselves. I could have tripled (maybe even quadrupled) my speed, which would have been very satisfying, but I held myself back. It was definitely annoying, however.
Still, I felt good at the end of the ride, and I got home about fifteen minutes earlier than I'd really planned (which was probably a good thing). I was still a little sore, later in the day, but only a little.
Oh, and I haven't felt much like it, but I've forced myself to do my tabata workout each of the last several nights, and that has helped, I think. It doesn't last long enough to create lasting soreness of its own, but I do feel good (if very tired) at the end, after I tag five minutes or so of stretching onto it.
Which brings me to today. It was always going to be a fairly gentle ride, but after looking at the weather yesterday, I decided that Tuesday would be my day off for the week. Which meant that I wanted to push myself even less today. Well, not less strenuous on a minute-by-minute basis, since the whole point of the easy rides is that they aren't strenuous, but less distance.
So I did my recently-normal 15 mile course that has almost 900' of elevation. And I did remember to put a new battery in the power meter, so I had power/cadence data. We'll see if the battery lasts through tomorrow's ride.
The point being, it was easy, I enjoyed it (it was close to meditative), and I got back on time (I didn't wake up early). I kept my heart rate within target range for all but 35 seconds, and maxed at 128bpm. All good numbers.
So the plan, going forward, is to do a long ride tomorrow; something at least sixty miles (and 80-100 would be better). I haven't figured out the timing, or an exact plan, but that's the rough outline. Then I'll probably do gentle rides Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, preparing for the group ride on Saturday (which will hopefully work out again).
20150415
Quiet, then not
Yesterday, I did manage to wake up early enough to get out and get my long loop done, even though my daughter needed to wake up early. I didn't make it by a lot (I had to inhale my breakfast, and didn't have time to get a shower before taking my daughter in), but we made it.
And I did do something a little different, yesterday, on that loop. I normally dodge over to the trail to get down into Shirlington, which adds a mile or two, but I decided to instead go straight down on George Mason Dr. I figured that, if I had time, I could add distance on at the end pretty easily.
So I went through a gentle ride of 25 miles, which did end up including a couple extra miles at the back end. And I stretched out the last mile or two as well, to make sure that I had the ride over two hours (cyclemeter said 2:00:15, while Strava said 2:05:10. Given that they're working from the same data, I wonder about that discrepancy. I'm sure some of it is stopped time vs moving time, but I have a hard time imagining five minutes of maybe-moving. One of the big advantages of riding when I do).
As far as heart rate, I think I did a good job except for a second or two of attempted track-stop at a road crossing. I had a hard enough time staying there that I ended up pulling one cleat off, and that ended up spiking my heart rate by 10-15bpm (I was on a very slight uphill, which didn't help). Total, though, I only had five minutes above 125bpm, which isn't bad.
The only irritation about the ride was when I stopped getting data from my power meter with a couple miles to go. In fact, it was a situation I'd never seen before; I was getting readings, but they were all zero.
I felt pretty good when I finished, but my legs felt pretty tired for most of the rest of the day, which had me feeling a bit depressed (after two recovery days, my legs should not be tired, even if I did forty-five miles over those two days). But I forced myself to do my stretches at night and got to bed early. Plus, I didn't try to wake up early.
So I got on the road just before 0530 (my target), and aimed to do essentially the same course as yesterday. My one big change was doing the big hill on Walter Reed Dr, near Shirlington, and killing it (PR by 14s; down to one minute, even. Moved me up 22 spots). I felt killed, at the end, too. Still, I pushed again on the other side of Shirlington, setting a PR by four seconds on the 31st St South segment (moved up eight places on the leaderboard, there). The latter especially surprised me, because I did blow up before the end; I probably would have been another 8-10 seconds faster without that.
Anyway, I kept up the fast pace without trying to set any records for most of the rest of the ride. I was really happy (especially after those two big climbs) to hit 12.6 miles in the first forty minutes (nearly 19mph avg).
The two exceptions I made were when I got to the cemetary. There's a long climb that goes from there, all the way to the courthouse, that I've been trying to improve on for quite a while. Well, I killed that one too. Not as much as the other two; I improved by eight seconds over nearly five minutes (previous PR was exactly 5:00). But just to beat it felt like an accomplishment.
The one other place I tried to push was when I got back to Washington Blvd and George Mason. I took the left there, and started pushing just before Greenbrier St. Unfortunately, that was a segment where I didn't know where the end was. But I did improve my PR by about 8%, which was enough to move me up to fifth, overall.
For the whole ride, I got 26.5 miles in 92 minutes (I stretched out the last three miles or so again, for the same reason as yesterday). I have no idea how, but the elevation ended up a hair less than yesterday. I had expected it to be more by 100-ish feet. Regardless, it was a good continuation of my volume, and work on the challenges.
So, especially given how I felt when starting, it's hard to complain about the ride results. My one complaint was that the power meter was out again, and reseating the battery (one mile in) did nothing to help that. I'll put a new battery in, later. Irritated that I need to, though, as that's less than a week with the current one. At least the heart rate meter wasn't also dead, I guess.
Oh, and the great thing was that it was warm enough to get by with a summer jersey and bibs. Very comfortable. One conclusion I've come to about jerseys; I'm not buying any more (at least not summer ones) that don't have a zip-up pocket. Too worried about dropping my phone. That might well mean that the Assos ones get worn more than I would prefer; we'll see.
Tomorrow and Friday will both be gentle days; all other details TBD.
And I did do something a little different, yesterday, on that loop. I normally dodge over to the trail to get down into Shirlington, which adds a mile or two, but I decided to instead go straight down on George Mason Dr. I figured that, if I had time, I could add distance on at the end pretty easily.
So I went through a gentle ride of 25 miles, which did end up including a couple extra miles at the back end. And I stretched out the last mile or two as well, to make sure that I had the ride over two hours (cyclemeter said 2:00:15, while Strava said 2:05:10. Given that they're working from the same data, I wonder about that discrepancy. I'm sure some of it is stopped time vs moving time, but I have a hard time imagining five minutes of maybe-moving. One of the big advantages of riding when I do).
As far as heart rate, I think I did a good job except for a second or two of attempted track-stop at a road crossing. I had a hard enough time staying there that I ended up pulling one cleat off, and that ended up spiking my heart rate by 10-15bpm (I was on a very slight uphill, which didn't help). Total, though, I only had five minutes above 125bpm, which isn't bad.
The only irritation about the ride was when I stopped getting data from my power meter with a couple miles to go. In fact, it was a situation I'd never seen before; I was getting readings, but they were all zero.
I felt pretty good when I finished, but my legs felt pretty tired for most of the rest of the day, which had me feeling a bit depressed (after two recovery days, my legs should not be tired, even if I did forty-five miles over those two days). But I forced myself to do my stretches at night and got to bed early. Plus, I didn't try to wake up early.
So I got on the road just before 0530 (my target), and aimed to do essentially the same course as yesterday. My one big change was doing the big hill on Walter Reed Dr, near Shirlington, and killing it (PR by 14s; down to one minute, even. Moved me up 22 spots). I felt killed, at the end, too. Still, I pushed again on the other side of Shirlington, setting a PR by four seconds on the 31st St South segment (moved up eight places on the leaderboard, there). The latter especially surprised me, because I did blow up before the end; I probably would have been another 8-10 seconds faster without that.
Anyway, I kept up the fast pace without trying to set any records for most of the rest of the ride. I was really happy (especially after those two big climbs) to hit 12.6 miles in the first forty minutes (nearly 19mph avg).
The two exceptions I made were when I got to the cemetary. There's a long climb that goes from there, all the way to the courthouse, that I've been trying to improve on for quite a while. Well, I killed that one too. Not as much as the other two; I improved by eight seconds over nearly five minutes (previous PR was exactly 5:00). But just to beat it felt like an accomplishment.
The one other place I tried to push was when I got back to Washington Blvd and George Mason. I took the left there, and started pushing just before Greenbrier St. Unfortunately, that was a segment where I didn't know where the end was. But I did improve my PR by about 8%, which was enough to move me up to fifth, overall.
For the whole ride, I got 26.5 miles in 92 minutes (I stretched out the last three miles or so again, for the same reason as yesterday). I have no idea how, but the elevation ended up a hair less than yesterday. I had expected it to be more by 100-ish feet. Regardless, it was a good continuation of my volume, and work on the challenges.
So, especially given how I felt when starting, it's hard to complain about the ride results. My one complaint was that the power meter was out again, and reseating the battery (one mile in) did nothing to help that. I'll put a new battery in, later. Irritated that I need to, though, as that's less than a week with the current one. At least the heart rate meter wasn't also dead, I guess.
Oh, and the great thing was that it was warm enough to get by with a summer jersey and bibs. Very comfortable. One conclusion I've come to about jerseys; I'm not buying any more (at least not summer ones) that don't have a zip-up pocket. Too worried about dropping my phone. That might well mean that the Assos ones get worn more than I would prefer; we'll see.
Tomorrow and Friday will both be gentle days; all other details TBD.
20150412
Weekend of extremes
Yesterday, I got up at 0400, but didn't feel like going anywhere at that early time, so I went back to sleep until 0500. Then I got up, got dressed, and got out on the road. I wasn't feeling great, right away, and my power meter didn't help by crapping out again (battery, after only a week or two. I even tried stopping, a mile in, to reseat the battery, but that didn't help).
Nevertheless, I kept going, and was feeling quite good after a few more minutes. I did, indeed, do a variation of my Old Town loop, which worked out nicely. One thing I noticed, that I normally don't, is that I averaged almost 16mph over the first hour, with which I was very pleased. I was having no trouble with keeping my heart rate down, which also made me quite happy.
I ended up doing thirty-three miles, taking two hours and a few minutes, and covering 1100' of elevation (a bit less than I expected, but still a decent number). That was enough to put me over the halfway point for the Strava Climbing Challenge, with nineteen days left. Again, pleased as punch.
And best of all, I was still feeling great after finishing; I felt like I could have gone another hour without any stress.
Last night, I decided that I really needed to do another hard day, today, just because of scheduling.
Well, events interfered pretty quickly, as I had a flat before I even left the house. I didn't even bother with trying to patch the tube, but just grabbed my spare tube and installed it. That got me on the road fairly quickly, although still considerably later than I'd planned (and to emphasize that point, I saw the first pre-dawn light right by the house).
One good thing: I did remember to replace the battery in the power meter before leaving.
My plan was to attack the hills for forty-five to sixty minutes, then tack on some more recovery miles. Well, getting to the hills starts with some mild uphill, and I wasn't feeling great, even with that. I thought of taking that to mean that I should just go elsewhere for a gentler ride. But I started feeling a little better almost right away, and held with the plan.
The first hill I attacked, I beat my PR by two seconds (again, more with better pacing than with all-out power). But I was already feeling pretty toasted after that. It could be that I was still feeling some residual effects from the century the other day.
Still, I persevered. I can't say as I was pleased with my results (actually, they were pretty terrible), but I stayed roughly with the plan. I didn't bike as far as I'd planned, although that was as much due to not knowing the time as anything. But I still got twenty miles in, with 1700' of elevation.
And I broke my plan a little bit, too, by trying to push a couple times after finishing the hills. I went to Highland Dr in Falls Church, and tried to push up that hill. I was shocked, at the end, to find I'd gotten 9th place on the segment that covers the whole street, because I didn't start right at the beginning (couldn't remember where it started) and blew up while still close to the bottom of the hill. With a decent try, I should be able to get into the top 3-5 without killing myself. Not sure when I'll try, but I will.
Tomorrow and Tuesday will definitely both be easy days, with mileage mostly determined by what time I wake up. I might try to wake up early both days to get 25-ish miles in; we'll see.
Nevertheless, I kept going, and was feeling quite good after a few more minutes. I did, indeed, do a variation of my Old Town loop, which worked out nicely. One thing I noticed, that I normally don't, is that I averaged almost 16mph over the first hour, with which I was very pleased. I was having no trouble with keeping my heart rate down, which also made me quite happy.
I ended up doing thirty-three miles, taking two hours and a few minutes, and covering 1100' of elevation (a bit less than I expected, but still a decent number). That was enough to put me over the halfway point for the Strava Climbing Challenge, with nineteen days left. Again, pleased as punch.
And best of all, I was still feeling great after finishing; I felt like I could have gone another hour without any stress.
Last night, I decided that I really needed to do another hard day, today, just because of scheduling.
Well, events interfered pretty quickly, as I had a flat before I even left the house. I didn't even bother with trying to patch the tube, but just grabbed my spare tube and installed it. That got me on the road fairly quickly, although still considerably later than I'd planned (and to emphasize that point, I saw the first pre-dawn light right by the house).
One good thing: I did remember to replace the battery in the power meter before leaving.
My plan was to attack the hills for forty-five to sixty minutes, then tack on some more recovery miles. Well, getting to the hills starts with some mild uphill, and I wasn't feeling great, even with that. I thought of taking that to mean that I should just go elsewhere for a gentler ride. But I started feeling a little better almost right away, and held with the plan.
The first hill I attacked, I beat my PR by two seconds (again, more with better pacing than with all-out power). But I was already feeling pretty toasted after that. It could be that I was still feeling some residual effects from the century the other day.
Still, I persevered. I can't say as I was pleased with my results (actually, they were pretty terrible), but I stayed roughly with the plan. I didn't bike as far as I'd planned, although that was as much due to not knowing the time as anything. But I still got twenty miles in, with 1700' of elevation.
And I broke my plan a little bit, too, by trying to push a couple times after finishing the hills. I went to Highland Dr in Falls Church, and tried to push up that hill. I was shocked, at the end, to find I'd gotten 9th place on the segment that covers the whole street, because I didn't start right at the beginning (couldn't remember where it started) and blew up while still close to the bottom of the hill. With a decent try, I should be able to get into the top 3-5 without killing myself. Not sure when I'll try, but I will.
Tomorrow and Tuesday will definitely both be easy days, with mileage mostly determined by what time I wake up. I might try to wake up early both days to get 25-ish miles in; we'll see.
20150405
Not the best start
Riding didn't really get off on the right foot again, this morning. The temperature started out a few degrees colder than expected, which was made a bit worse by my wearing a lighter base layer than I really should have, with the jersey I wore.
Plus, almost as soon as I got moving, I found that both my power meter and my heart rate meter were dead again (which works out to something like a week's life for each battery). Not cool.
Then, I found that that sore spot from yesterday was back, very quickly. But fortunately, I was able to shift around on the seat (and/or shift my posture) such that it stopped bothering me. Score one for the good guys, there.
I ended up doing a two hour ride, and it was quite pleasant. Aside from the fact that I might well have overexerted myself due to not having any power or pulse feedback, it was a very easy ride. Average speed was pretty good, at 13.4mph over the two hours (and a couple minutes; further corroboration to my theory about Competitive Cyclist credit, as that did earn a $2 credit). That worked out to just short of twenty-eight miles, with 960' of elevation (I was a little disappointed that the elevation wasn't a bit better).
The one irritation once I'd been moving for a while was that I didn't bring my camera. The sunrise over the Potomac was quite lovely, and I'd've loved to have captured that, somehow. Can't make up for it next time, but maybe sometime soon.
Tomorrow the weather should be pretty nice, at 45F and dry. Unfortunately, unless I wake up super early (for me), I still won't be able to do much more than an hour of riding. I need to actually go in to work, and not even to my normal location, so that's going to pretty well hose my day. I need to finish a bit early, and get on the road quite a bit early. And I probably won't have much time to help get the kids ready either. Not good at all.
One note on the diet today, too. We went out for a really nice brunch with the whole family (both sets of grandparents). There was a good selection, and I ate a tremundo amount mostly keeping to my diet. But I decided that I'd cheated enough that I'd actually get desert (the cherries jubilee were calling, and they were delicious). Then I went back several more times for the cherries jubilee, as well as for a couple of fresh-made cinnamon rolls (I blame this one on the smell of cinnamon from the graham cracker my youngest was eating when we left the house).
Bundle that all together, and I'm pretty sure I nuked the diet for the meal. Hopefully I can get it back together tomorrow; going to the new location, I have no idea what will be available for lunch. If not, I guess there's no reason to think it'll be a problem to fix it the day after and beyond. But annoying that it might need it. We'll see.
Plus, almost as soon as I got moving, I found that both my power meter and my heart rate meter were dead again (which works out to something like a week's life for each battery). Not cool.
Then, I found that that sore spot from yesterday was back, very quickly. But fortunately, I was able to shift around on the seat (and/or shift my posture) such that it stopped bothering me. Score one for the good guys, there.
I ended up doing a two hour ride, and it was quite pleasant. Aside from the fact that I might well have overexerted myself due to not having any power or pulse feedback, it was a very easy ride. Average speed was pretty good, at 13.4mph over the two hours (and a couple minutes; further corroboration to my theory about Competitive Cyclist credit, as that did earn a $2 credit). That worked out to just short of twenty-eight miles, with 960' of elevation (I was a little disappointed that the elevation wasn't a bit better).
The one irritation once I'd been moving for a while was that I didn't bring my camera. The sunrise over the Potomac was quite lovely, and I'd've loved to have captured that, somehow. Can't make up for it next time, but maybe sometime soon.
Tomorrow the weather should be pretty nice, at 45F and dry. Unfortunately, unless I wake up super early (for me), I still won't be able to do much more than an hour of riding. I need to actually go in to work, and not even to my normal location, so that's going to pretty well hose my day. I need to finish a bit early, and get on the road quite a bit early. And I probably won't have much time to help get the kids ready either. Not good at all.
One note on the diet today, too. We went out for a really nice brunch with the whole family (both sets of grandparents). There was a good selection, and I ate a tremundo amount mostly keeping to my diet. But I decided that I'd cheated enough that I'd actually get desert (the cherries jubilee were calling, and they were delicious). Then I went back several more times for the cherries jubilee, as well as for a couple of fresh-made cinnamon rolls (I blame this one on the smell of cinnamon from the graham cracker my youngest was eating when we left the house).
Bundle that all together, and I'm pretty sure I nuked the diet for the meal. Hopefully I can get it back together tomorrow; going to the new location, I have no idea what will be available for lunch. If not, I guess there's no reason to think it'll be a problem to fix it the day after and beyond. But annoying that it might need it. We'll see.
20150312
And not so boring
I got out this morning a little earlier than yesterday. I knew I was a little overdressed when I left, but I was expecting the temperature to drop, perhaps by as much as six or eight degrees. It did end up dropping by five, but I can't say as I noticed it. I was probably bathing in sweat by the time it did.
Still, I decided that I was going to push it today, and I did that, right from the start. I turned left onto George Mason Dr, as usual, though taking the turn a little faster than normal. I then stood up and tried to crank, but I did a good job in that I didn't burn myself out in the first twenty seconds (as I sometimes do). I was trying to improve my time on a segment that I'd worked hard on, last year, but on which this was only my second attempt of the year.
And improve I did. I took seven seconds off my record (and I had seven more tries within three seconds of that), putting me in a solid second for the segment. I'm in no danger of getting KOM, there, as the current one beat me (yes, my new time) by another nine seconds, but I was still very happy. And I might be able to knock another second or two off, actually, because I wasn't completely wasted at the end (which I was in my previous PR run), and apparently tailed off a little in the last second or two (I thought I was finished).
Anyway, I crossed Rt 29, had a mechanical problem that forced me off the bike for, probably, half a minute (which didn't show up, somehow. I'm curious why. I'm also curious why it felt like the chain was stuck for a minute). Then I started cranking down George Mason, eventually setting a PR for Yorktown to W&OD. That was largely accidental, as I was only seriously cranking at the very end, but it was cool to see. In fact, I finished fourth overall on the segment, and probably would have been bucking for first (definitely, I would have been solidly in second, as I was only three seconds out of second) without that chain problem.
A little disappointing to be so close, yet so far, but I'm glad that I did well in the segment of that at the end, where I was really trying (to say nothing of how happy I was to have killed that first segment).
By this point, though, I had noticed that I wasn't seeing anything from my heart rate meter, and I was pretty pissed about that, as the current battery only had 15-20 hours on it. That's just terrible. It never came back, either, so I'm forced to conclude that it must have been the battery. Nothing to be done about it, though.
But my heart rate was definitely way up there; I think I did a better job of keeping it up there than I had in a long time. For sure, I finished the twenty-three miles at 18.65 mph (per Cyclemeter. I just noticed that Strava has 0.35 miles less in over two minutes longer time, with an average speed of only 17.9mph. Curious), which is considerably better than I've done in a while. And that's with almost 900' of elevation, which isn't bad.
One thing I didn't do, which I'd talked about, was ingest some carbs before the ride to try to improve my top-end power. Well, my top-end power was still quite good. In fact, I was only a few watts off my all-time best, and maintained that power for a couple seconds (right before the end of the ride, at that). So definitely nothing lost due to the diet, there. I still want to improve significantly, there, but that's encouraging.
As far as the diet's concerned, I've weighed myself at 149 and change for three of the last four days (after breakfast, but nearly naked). The fourth day, I was 151.2, but that was taken after lunch. So maybe 150# is stable. We'll see.
I have started doing my Quick4 workout at night again, and I've noticed that that helps with my breathing. I definitely should not have stopped doing that.
And I got a weight bench, mostly to do squats and leg curls, but haven't set it up yet. I need to get that set up. The squats, I think, I'll do daily, and probably do the leg curls every other day. At least, that's the plan.
Tomorrow will definitely be a coasting day; I'll probably aim for 13-14 miles at an easy pace. Saturday will probably be a hard day again, as I'll try to join up with that group ride again. I still don't think I'm in any danger of kicking their asses (especially not over any length more than a minute or so), but I'm hoping I can at least hang with them. Last time I went, they were dragging me along; it'd be really sweet if that weren't the case next time.
The one thing I really need to do (preferably before tomorrow) is adjust my rear derailleur. I'm not sure how (other than that the LOW setting is definitely too high), but it's got some issues at the moment.
One good thing is that I took my crank and cassette off, a couple days ago, and gave them a sickeningly-complete cleaning. That might have caused the rear derailleur issue (it felt like the cassette might not have gone as far onto the hub when reassembling), but it seems to've fixed the front derailleur issue I was seeing before that. Baby steps, and all that.
Update: I did confirm that the heart rate meter problem was totally battery-related. Annoying, but better than a defective meter.
Still, I decided that I was going to push it today, and I did that, right from the start. I turned left onto George Mason Dr, as usual, though taking the turn a little faster than normal. I then stood up and tried to crank, but I did a good job in that I didn't burn myself out in the first twenty seconds (as I sometimes do). I was trying to improve my time on a segment that I'd worked hard on, last year, but on which this was only my second attempt of the year.
And improve I did. I took seven seconds off my record (and I had seven more tries within three seconds of that), putting me in a solid second for the segment. I'm in no danger of getting KOM, there, as the current one beat me (yes, my new time) by another nine seconds, but I was still very happy. And I might be able to knock another second or two off, actually, because I wasn't completely wasted at the end (which I was in my previous PR run), and apparently tailed off a little in the last second or two (I thought I was finished).
Anyway, I crossed Rt 29, had a mechanical problem that forced me off the bike for, probably, half a minute (which didn't show up, somehow. I'm curious why. I'm also curious why it felt like the chain was stuck for a minute). Then I started cranking down George Mason, eventually setting a PR for Yorktown to W&OD. That was largely accidental, as I was only seriously cranking at the very end, but it was cool to see. In fact, I finished fourth overall on the segment, and probably would have been bucking for first (definitely, I would have been solidly in second, as I was only three seconds out of second) without that chain problem.
A little disappointing to be so close, yet so far, but I'm glad that I did well in the segment of that at the end, where I was really trying (to say nothing of how happy I was to have killed that first segment).
By this point, though, I had noticed that I wasn't seeing anything from my heart rate meter, and I was pretty pissed about that, as the current battery only had 15-20 hours on it. That's just terrible. It never came back, either, so I'm forced to conclude that it must have been the battery. Nothing to be done about it, though.
But my heart rate was definitely way up there; I think I did a better job of keeping it up there than I had in a long time. For sure, I finished the twenty-three miles at 18.65 mph (per Cyclemeter. I just noticed that Strava has 0.35 miles less in over two minutes longer time, with an average speed of only 17.9mph. Curious), which is considerably better than I've done in a while. And that's with almost 900' of elevation, which isn't bad.
One thing I didn't do, which I'd talked about, was ingest some carbs before the ride to try to improve my top-end power. Well, my top-end power was still quite good. In fact, I was only a few watts off my all-time best, and maintained that power for a couple seconds (right before the end of the ride, at that). So definitely nothing lost due to the diet, there. I still want to improve significantly, there, but that's encouraging.
As far as the diet's concerned, I've weighed myself at 149 and change for three of the last four days (after breakfast, but nearly naked). The fourth day, I was 151.2, but that was taken after lunch. So maybe 150# is stable. We'll see.
I have started doing my Quick4 workout at night again, and I've noticed that that helps with my breathing. I definitely should not have stopped doing that.
And I got a weight bench, mostly to do squats and leg curls, but haven't set it up yet. I need to get that set up. The squats, I think, I'll do daily, and probably do the leg curls every other day. At least, that's the plan.
Tomorrow will definitely be a coasting day; I'll probably aim for 13-14 miles at an easy pace. Saturday will probably be a hard day again, as I'll try to join up with that group ride again. I still don't think I'm in any danger of kicking their asses (especially not over any length more than a minute or so), but I'm hoping I can at least hang with them. Last time I went, they were dragging me along; it'd be really sweet if that weren't the case next time.
The one thing I really need to do (preferably before tomorrow) is adjust my rear derailleur. I'm not sure how (other than that the LOW setting is definitely too high), but it's got some issues at the moment.
One good thing is that I took my crank and cassette off, a couple days ago, and gave them a sickeningly-complete cleaning. That might have caused the rear derailleur issue (it felt like the cassette might not have gone as far onto the hub when reassembling), but it seems to've fixed the front derailleur issue I was seeing before that. Baby steps, and all that.
Update: I did confirm that the heart rate meter problem was totally battery-related. Annoying, but better than a defective meter.
20140610
Phone update
Two more notes about the iPhone 5s's recently bought. Battery life has not been nearly as good as I was hoping (feels worse than the iPhone 4 that was replaced). And the other difference I've noticed is the additional memory (don't know what the difference is, but have definitely found it happen less often that an app needs to reload).
I suspect the battery life has a lot to do with LTE. I've been killing it in terms of downloading. Streaming from iTunes Match (finally figured out that enabling that involved going into app settings. Still haven't noticed any progress in matching my library, though. Bar hasn't visibly moved in several days, now) via LTE, then to car via bluetooth is incredibly cool to have as an option, but it chews battery life like you wouldn't believe (probably over 50% an hour; I need to do a controlled experiment).
Anyway, so far I've needed to charge daily (and not barely needed either). That's not what I'm used to having happen. Will have to keep monitoring.
I suspect the battery life has a lot to do with LTE. I've been killing it in terms of downloading. Streaming from iTunes Match (finally figured out that enabling that involved going into app settings. Still haven't noticed any progress in matching my library, though. Bar hasn't visibly moved in several days, now) via LTE, then to car via bluetooth is incredibly cool to have as an option, but it chews battery life like you wouldn't believe (probably over 50% an hour; I need to do a controlled experiment).
Anyway, so far I've needed to charge daily (and not barely needed either). That's not what I'm used to having happen. Will have to keep monitoring.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)