I woke up a little bit early this morning; needed to go to the bathroom. Like the last couple days, it was a less-than-pleasant experience, but at least this time I had some imodium to take afterward. I also downed some water right away, though probably not as much as I should have.
Regardless, I got on the bike, and did roughly what I described yesterday. That is, I did my 25-mile figure-eight ride, going hard up the hills (and moderate to hard, otherwise).
How'd that work? Mixed. The first hill, which climbs S 31st St above Shirlington (going right by the apartment building where I lived for a couple years) went quite well. I knocked 16s off my previous best (which was 92s, so better than 17% improvement), although I think the segment went ten or twenty yards further than I thought, as I tailed off a bit. Or maybe I was just tired; I know my heart rate cleared 190bpm there. Still, that was 7th overall, and I was quite happy with that.
There's another, very short, hill going from Fairfax Dr to the Custis Trail (just before George Mason Dr) that also went well. I hadn't attacked that one in a long time (and have only done so a few times, actually), but took four seconds (of eighteen) off my previous best. That put me at 10th overall (and I'm pretty sure several of the ones above me were in a car), which was also cool.
On the long climb from the Cemetary, along Rt 110, up Ft Myer Dr, then the Rt 50 access road, across Rhodes, and up Courthouse, it didn't go nearly as well. I took four seconds (of thirty-four, and I'd hit that time four times previously) off my record for the first hill, which was great. But by the time I cleared the Iwo Jima Memorial, I was already a second off my best, and it did not improve from there. In the end, despite heaving at a heart rate of 195bpm, I lost nine more seconds off my best, the rest of the way. Ah well.
I also pushed pretty hard from Gravelly Point to the Fourteenth St Bridge (forgetting that the segment extends a fair bit further than that), but ended up way off my best time (almost a minute off; would be interesting to know how the part up to the bridge compared). And perhaps pushing there was a significant contribution to my lackluster showing a mile later, when I got to the Cemetary.
At the end, I tried to push on a segment shortly after turning from George Mason Dr onto Washington Blvd. Unfortunately, I started well before the beginning (forgot where it started until I got there) and then blew up. Twenty-six seconds (of fifty-six) off my record. Ouch.
But the last hill before home, on Williamsburg, between Harrison and George Mason, I managed to hammer up and over. I beat my previous best by three seconds (of forty-five), which is decent. Still need to knock ten seconds off that, if I want to get into the top ten, but I think I might be able to do that if I'm not tired when I get there (not only is there the fatigue, but I didn't start pushing until the hill, and the segment starts a couple hundred yards before that. Maybe, maybe not). We'll see.
In any event, as you can see, pretty mixed results. Overall, 25 miles, 1100', 17.0mph (worse than I thought), just shy of twenty-five minutes Z4-Z5 (heart-based), thirteen minutes Z4-Z7 (power-based). Power curve? Meh. Decent out to 10s (935W there, done on that 14s segment mentioned above), close to my record from 1:08 to 2:27, new record 5:15-5:35 (interesting, that), and pretty mediocre otherwise.
Not bad, I guess, for being in less-than-perfect health, although I must admit to still being disappointed in a few details. Looking forward, tomorrow and Friday will both be recovery days (although I might do extra, easy, miles on Friday because I might have some time during the day), and hopefully Saturday will be the hard group ride.
Oh, and I forgot to mention; the new wheels arrived very late today without ever indicating "Out for Delivery", for which they did have an indicator. Don't use PostNL if you can help it.
Showing posts with label sickness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sickness. Show all posts
20150617
20150616
Still not right
I've been feeling mostly better today. Only one extended bout, although my stomach has been feeling... not right... for most of the day.
I still got out and rode, but it was a shorter ride; around ten miles. I thought that would help a bit, although I'm not sure it did. One amusement kind of came out of it. I didn't feel up to much of a meal for breakfast, so I just threw some eggs in the pan, scrambling them. But then I left them in a bit too long; not nearly enough to burn them, but enough to end up with an egg pancake, essentially.
It tasted just fine, but definitely looked odd.
I let myself be persuaded to take my daughter to school on her bike again, which worked out ok.
Overall, that's about 16.3 miles, with close to 1000' of elevation (though I screwed up twice, resulting in the elevation not being recorded on Strava for either trip to school). On the eleven miles by myself, that was at 13.3mph, and power was only so-so at 102W. Heart-rate was pretty good, averaging 120bpm, although I did have a spike up to 132bpm when a pick-up decided that, with two lanes available, he needed to pass within a couple feet of me (no, I was not in the middle) at very high speed. Overall, I had four minutes above 125bpm. No complaints there.
I could see that I wasn't all the way well, though; I was only able to push 110-120W and stay in the low 120's pulse. That isn't bad, but is definitely worse than I was doing a few days ago. Hopefully, I can get that back to better numbers tomorrow or the next day.
Even though tomorrow should be a "go like hell" day, I'm probably going to take it easy. Also, I think the group ride isn't happening, since I haven't seen any emails. And given the way I've been feeling, I'm ok with that. I'll try to do my 25-mile loop, and if I'm feeling better, I'll attack the hills on the way, maybe.
Update: I forgot to mention, the Swiss Side Hadron wheels that I bought a while ago might arrive tomorrow. They were shipped early last week, and made it into the country by Thursday, but have made no visible progress since. But optimistically, they could still arrive tomorrow. I will say that I'm extremely unimpressed with the shipper, PostNL. Their tracking (or their progress; I'm not sure which, though my inclination is to give them the benefit of the doubt, and blame the tracking) sucks rocks. I would strongly recommend never using them, if it's an option, and you have another choice. Six days to get from NYC (presumably where it came into the country) to here is really awful, no matter how you slice it.
I still got out and rode, but it was a shorter ride; around ten miles. I thought that would help a bit, although I'm not sure it did. One amusement kind of came out of it. I didn't feel up to much of a meal for breakfast, so I just threw some eggs in the pan, scrambling them. But then I left them in a bit too long; not nearly enough to burn them, but enough to end up with an egg pancake, essentially.
It tasted just fine, but definitely looked odd.
I let myself be persuaded to take my daughter to school on her bike again, which worked out ok.
Overall, that's about 16.3 miles, with close to 1000' of elevation (though I screwed up twice, resulting in the elevation not being recorded on Strava for either trip to school). On the eleven miles by myself, that was at 13.3mph, and power was only so-so at 102W. Heart-rate was pretty good, averaging 120bpm, although I did have a spike up to 132bpm when a pick-up decided that, with two lanes available, he needed to pass within a couple feet of me (no, I was not in the middle) at very high speed. Overall, I had four minutes above 125bpm. No complaints there.
I could see that I wasn't all the way well, though; I was only able to push 110-120W and stay in the low 120's pulse. That isn't bad, but is definitely worse than I was doing a few days ago. Hopefully, I can get that back to better numbers tomorrow or the next day.
Even though tomorrow should be a "go like hell" day, I'm probably going to take it easy. Also, I think the group ride isn't happening, since I haven't seen any emails. And given the way I've been feeling, I'm ok with that. I'll try to do my 25-mile loop, and if I'm feeling better, I'll attack the hills on the way, maybe.
Update: I forgot to mention, the Swiss Side Hadron wheels that I bought a while ago might arrive tomorrow. They were shipped early last week, and made it into the country by Thursday, but have made no visible progress since. But optimistically, they could still arrive tomorrow. I will say that I'm extremely unimpressed with the shipper, PostNL. Their tracking (or their progress; I'm not sure which, though my inclination is to give them the benefit of the doubt, and blame the tracking) sucks rocks. I would strongly recommend never using them, if it's an option, and you have another choice. Six days to get from NYC (presumably where it came into the country) to here is really awful, no matter how you slice it.
20150614
Handling pain
You would think, if you just looked at the efforts yesterday and today, that the pain I'm referring to would be the 25 miles, 2000' elevation, 16.9mph ride yesterday. But it's actually the 6.2 mile, 400', 10.7 mph ride this morning. How is that? Let's take a look.
Yesterday, I actually overslept, and wasn't even able to take a look at the group ride. And I think things worked out just fine, with that (also, I checked, and the Air Force Classic is happening right now; it wasn't yesterday).
In any event, I got out a little late, and did a few miles of warm-up. Once I felt warmed up, I went to my hill route, and attacked that (although not quite as hard as last time; I was trying to make a longer effort). And my effort paid off, I think. I didn't hammer any of the hills as hard as two weeks ago, but I wasn't far off, and I did way better over the distance.
Strava's climbing challenge, this month, references the Nepal earthquake, and suggests a one-day "everest"ing for a climb. I've been thinking about trying that, and to that end I've created a couple of segments lately trying to work out the feasibility.
The first of those was a very short loop (essentially, around a big block) with a huge hill in it, that I tried on Wednesday. It worked out to 86' of elevation in 0.6 miles. I forget the exact number, but that works out to way over 200 miles to "Everest" by looping over it. I also created a loop segment on my hills route that came out to 4.2 miles with 586' of elevation. That's a tiny bit better, but still over 200 miles.
Still, the main point of mentioning that latter segment is that I beat my previous best on that one by half a minute. And my time from two weeks ago (when I just destroyed the first hill) by almost a minute. Interestingly, while I did way better on the initial climb on that first hill the other week, the segment extends a ways, and I ended up tying that overall time. And on the second climb, on Lorcom Ln, I knocked two seconds (coincidentally, improving my placing by two) off my best.
From there, I took a new route that went behind my daughter's school, and into some hills in McLean, then down to Falls Church and onto the W&OD trail. I took that back out to Idylwood, then back on Powhatan. I meandered around a little more, thinking of it as a cool-off, but then found myself on Florida heading towards George Mason. I decided to try for a personal record coming back down George Mason from Rt 29 to Yorktown (I used to always finish off my rides with that sprint, but haven't done so in a while).
How'd that work? Well, I knocked six seconds off my best, bringing me into a three-way tie for KOM. So, even better than expected.
Overall, my power curve spiked a little higher instantaneously than two weeks ago, was significantly worse from there, out to a minute and a half or so, and was comparable or better afterwards. So, about like I wanted it. I also hit 700-ish Watts several different times for 10-20 seconds, which is pretty good. Heart rate had a Zone 4 mode, which was cool, with almost 44 minutes in 4 & 5.
Power zones had about 19 1/2 minutes at/over threshold, which is quite good. And six and a half of that was 390+W, which is awesome.
And while all of that was a little draining, I felt pretty good at the end of it.
Breakfast was a bit different than my usual, of late, and I think that messed me up later in the day. I was fine until shortly before my daughter finished ballet class, when my stomach whomped me seriously and mostly knocked me out for the rest of the day.
Which is what made this morning's ride so difficult. Part of the problem (probably a large part) was that I didn't eat after breakfast yesterday. I didn't want anything until very late at night, and even then, feeling empty, nothing appealed. So I didn't eat. Worse, I didn't drink, so I was probably pretty severely dehydrated by the time I went riding.
How bad was it? I could only push about 80W while keeping my heart rate in my target range. It was bad! If I hadn't had such a long string of daily rides, I would have skipped it entirely.
I thought about making the ride a little bit longer than I did, but I'm glad I didn't. My heart rate being so out of control is a pretty fair indicator that I probably shouldn't have done as much as I did. It also makes me wonder if the reason I've had trouble keeping my heart rate down, in the past, after reaching an hour, is due to dehydration. Not as bad as this morning, of course, but I wonder if a small amount might be having an effect. Something to ponder.
Getting back to today, after finishing the ride and eating a simple breakfast, I ended up going back to bed for quite a few hours. Not a good situation.
Update: I forgot to mention why I associated diarrhea and dehydration. Diarrhea, if you don't replenish fluids, will cause dehydration. In fact, diarrhea kills far more children in Africa than does malaria, and it's all due to that dehydration. Still think clean drinking water is a solved problem?
Yesterday, I actually overslept, and wasn't even able to take a look at the group ride. And I think things worked out just fine, with that (also, I checked, and the Air Force Classic is happening right now; it wasn't yesterday).
In any event, I got out a little late, and did a few miles of warm-up. Once I felt warmed up, I went to my hill route, and attacked that (although not quite as hard as last time; I was trying to make a longer effort). And my effort paid off, I think. I didn't hammer any of the hills as hard as two weeks ago, but I wasn't far off, and I did way better over the distance.
Strava's climbing challenge, this month, references the Nepal earthquake, and suggests a one-day "everest"ing for a climb. I've been thinking about trying that, and to that end I've created a couple of segments lately trying to work out the feasibility.
The first of those was a very short loop (essentially, around a big block) with a huge hill in it, that I tried on Wednesday. It worked out to 86' of elevation in 0.6 miles. I forget the exact number, but that works out to way over 200 miles to "Everest" by looping over it. I also created a loop segment on my hills route that came out to 4.2 miles with 586' of elevation. That's a tiny bit better, but still over 200 miles.
Still, the main point of mentioning that latter segment is that I beat my previous best on that one by half a minute. And my time from two weeks ago (when I just destroyed the first hill) by almost a minute. Interestingly, while I did way better on the initial climb on that first hill the other week, the segment extends a ways, and I ended up tying that overall time. And on the second climb, on Lorcom Ln, I knocked two seconds (coincidentally, improving my placing by two) off my best.
From there, I took a new route that went behind my daughter's school, and into some hills in McLean, then down to Falls Church and onto the W&OD trail. I took that back out to Idylwood, then back on Powhatan. I meandered around a little more, thinking of it as a cool-off, but then found myself on Florida heading towards George Mason. I decided to try for a personal record coming back down George Mason from Rt 29 to Yorktown (I used to always finish off my rides with that sprint, but haven't done so in a while).
How'd that work? Well, I knocked six seconds off my best, bringing me into a three-way tie for KOM. So, even better than expected.
Overall, my power curve spiked a little higher instantaneously than two weeks ago, was significantly worse from there, out to a minute and a half or so, and was comparable or better afterwards. So, about like I wanted it. I also hit 700-ish Watts several different times for 10-20 seconds, which is pretty good. Heart rate had a Zone 4 mode, which was cool, with almost 44 minutes in 4 & 5.
Power zones had about 19 1/2 minutes at/over threshold, which is quite good. And six and a half of that was 390+W, which is awesome.
And while all of that was a little draining, I felt pretty good at the end of it.
Breakfast was a bit different than my usual, of late, and I think that messed me up later in the day. I was fine until shortly before my daughter finished ballet class, when my stomach whomped me seriously and mostly knocked me out for the rest of the day.
Which is what made this morning's ride so difficult. Part of the problem (probably a large part) was that I didn't eat after breakfast yesterday. I didn't want anything until very late at night, and even then, feeling empty, nothing appealed. So I didn't eat. Worse, I didn't drink, so I was probably pretty severely dehydrated by the time I went riding.
How bad was it? I could only push about 80W while keeping my heart rate in my target range. It was bad! If I hadn't had such a long string of daily rides, I would have skipped it entirely.
I thought about making the ride a little bit longer than I did, but I'm glad I didn't. My heart rate being so out of control is a pretty fair indicator that I probably shouldn't have done as much as I did. It also makes me wonder if the reason I've had trouble keeping my heart rate down, in the past, after reaching an hour, is due to dehydration. Not as bad as this morning, of course, but I wonder if a small amount might be having an effect. Something to ponder.
Getting back to today, after finishing the ride and eating a simple breakfast, I ended up going back to bed for quite a few hours. Not a good situation.
Update: I forgot to mention why I associated diarrhea and dehydration. Diarrhea, if you don't replenish fluids, will cause dehydration. In fact, diarrhea kills far more children in Africa than does malaria, and it's all due to that dehydration. Still think clean drinking water is a solved problem?
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