fI've been falling further behind, it seems, on talking about my biking progress. The last week has been a very mixed bag, in terms of success and pleasure.
The first several days, I was riding at night and doing eleven miles or so, as I described previously. That was almost all taking it easy, with a couple exceptions, and I'm just going to talk about the exceptions today.
Two of those days, I did that loop, but decided to attack a hill on Williamsburg Rd near my house (the last hill before I get home; the segment is called Wmsburg Riser). The first of those times, I planned ahead, but forgot where the segment started, and started pushing a (short) block early. I still got a PR of 36s, but definitely gave up something. Two days later, I didn't plan ahead, but as I reached the correct starting point, decided to charge up it and set a new PR of 34s. Both times I failed to keep pushing after cresting the hill; if I want to challenge for KOM, I need to do that.
Another exception was that I took Friday off, and did a ride of a little over an hour. I decided to challenge the Arlington trail loop (Custis/W&OD/Mt Vernon trails) that I hadn't done since October 28th. Call it a benchmark of progress since then (and while I knew it had been a while, I didn't realize it had been quite that long since I did that ride). How did it go? Swimmingly.
I did fall off considerably from the penultimate hill to the end, but still did get KOM. In doing so, I beat my old record by just over two minutes; not bad for a sixteen-mile loop (fifty minutes down to forty-eight, roughly).
Oh, and at the end of my fifteen mile loop on Saturday, I finished with a slight variation on my normal route, coming back via Little Falls Rd/Yorktown Blvd instead of Williamsburg. There's a stretch along there that I used to try to tackle vigorously, but which I hadn't done hard in quite a while (since March, I think, looking back at my times).
Well, I decided to go all-out along that stretch, and actually caught and passed a couple of cars that were probably doing the speed limit. Man, did that feel good. Actually, it felt remarkably good just pounding along there; I'm not sure what it was, but I found the perfect cadence or something, and it just felt like flying instead of riding. I was working hard (420W avg), but somehow, it didn't feel like it.
The cars started with a lead of 1-200 yards, and I didn't think I'd ever catch them (especially since I stayed seated the whole time), but I did it with room to spare. I kept hammering the pedals up the hill just after the end of the segment. I was seriously beat by the time I got to the top, but it was a good feeling.
When I first started out, I was doing that segment in just about a minute, but this time was 36s. Back then, I knew I'd be able to improve, but would not have guessed that I'd be able to do so by so much. Now I wonder if there's any more room for improvement, although I doubt I'll try anytime soon.
Actually, I created the segment, and I think I did it after my first round of improvement, where I got 10-15s better, and wanted to see myself beating other people. It was pretty eye-opening to see how much faster the other people were at the time. Definitely motivation for me to improve.
Once thing that has come out of the last few days is that I've found that I really enjoy riding at night. It was more of a scheduling thing that got me to be doing that (my wife needing to go to work early, mostly), but it works pretty well. I play Puzzle Quest in the morning, finishing competitions (right at the end is a bad time to not be playing). And in the evening, I play some more of that, but when I get to a point where I need an hour or so of healing, I take a break to ride the bike. Works out pretty well.
And I'm surprised that I find the roads and trails less crowded at night. I don't see the joggers running in the road, which is nice (that still bothers me quite a lot, especially the ones playing chicken), and there are actually fewer cars as well. The latter shocked me, but I certainly enjoy it (other than the jerk who passed me at 75 in a 30mph zone, last night. And who couldn't even be bothered to get all the way in the other lane. Was seriously wishing a cop had been there).
So I might just keep riding at night, instead of switching back to the morning. The one fly in the ointment is that I haven't been sleeping enough, and playing that game is the primarily culprit for that. I might talk about that part some more, but suffice it to say that it's probably unsustainable for me to keep sleeping so little. We'll see.
Showing posts with label strava. Show all posts
Showing posts with label strava. Show all posts
20150720
20150608
Working hard?
Last Friday, I followed through on the plan I had in my head, perfectly.
On Friday, I did my 18-mile loop, and did a pretty good job with it. The 13.3mph speed wasn't too great, but I did keep my heart rate down below 128, with less than a minute total above 125bpm. Rockin'. Power was 111W avg, which is a bit below where I would like to be, but not bad.
Saturday, to take it a little bit easier, I did my 15-mile loop, although I did a little bit worse. I finished in 66 minutes, which is 13.8mph. That's not too bad. And power was 115W avg, which is also pretty good. But I did much worse with heart rate; my max was 133bpm and I spent close to eight minutes over 125bpm. That's not good.
On Sunday, though, I was feeling pretty good. I left the house at 0445, went a mile or so, then turned back to get a couple more items. I got out of the house again at 0453, which was still earlier than my original plan. Unfortunately, I decided to avoid the Toll Road for getting to Reston, and went a couple miles out of my way when I missed a turn. Fortunately, I caught it pretty quickly, and got back on track.
When I got there, I found out that, as largely expected, the breakfast consisted of absolutely nothing I could eat. Bagels, fruit, and energy bars. Carbs, carbs, carbs. I guess they didn't want to deal with plates and utensils, but I would have killed for some eggs and bacon.
I had some time to wait, and found a few of my teammates. We hung out until 0630 (I had planned on leaving at 0600), then got on the road. We asked for directions to start, and were pointed in the wrong direction (boy, this is already sounding familiar). We corrected fairly quickly, although we did an extra half mile to a mile.
One thing that surprised me, was that I expected a mass start, and something like a peloton on the road. But it was ridiculously sparse. We ended up in a group of ten or so for the first fifteen miles.
And I should point out that we were "supposed" to do 18mph (which had me a bit concerned, beforehand), but we did manage to do that. In Purcellville, around mile thirty, was when we really started dropping people. In fact, our group of ten fell down to three, there. It was me, one teammate, and another guy we didn't know who was hanging back a bit (though he decided to pass us a few miles up from there).
That just left my teammate and I, and we worked out a system. He had aerobars (for triathlon-guy), so he led on the downhills (mostly), and I would generally pass him and lead on the uphills. That worked well to the halfway point, when I started flagging (my first time dealing with cramps in my thighs, along with general fatigue).
But we kept going for quite a while. Much longer than we should have, it turns out, as we took a wrong turn in Middleburg that took us seven miles out of our way through serious hills (well, as serious as it gets in that area; nothing compared to real mountains, of course). And, of course, I ran out of water in that detour. Not fun.
We did, eventually, figure out our mistake, though, and got back on course. Although we hit that point on our detour, we actually did keep our 18mph speed through milemarker 72 (not really sure, after that).
Anyway, we finally hit the next rest stop at about milemarker 82, and I had to stop there, for a while, to get my muscles to uncramp (drank a lot of water, some energy drink, and had a couple electrolyte pills). Plus, the rest helped a lot.
My teammate needed to continue on, so I didn't see him again. Several people got to, and/or left, the rest stop while I was resting. I mention that because, once I got moving, I managed to pass everyone else over the next 5-8 miles after leaving (and that made me happy).
From there, I did pretty well, keeping going. I still had some cramping, but they never got nearly as bad as at that rest stop. It helped, though, that I had a couple bananas (terrible, vis a vis my diet, but I needed the potassium) at subsequent rest stops.
The rest of the way was a bit of a struggle, and I stopped at every rest stop along the way. Also, when I was leaving Purcellville, my phone got to the point where it stops recording (right at 99.9 miles, which is funny, considering I had set my phone up to email a few people every five miles).
Not much else to say, really; I did it, and it was a struggle. The last couple miles, I took a pull from a woman on a time trial bike; I have no pride about that sort of thing.
Since my phone died, I don't really know what my final time was. I managed to get it to show me finishing, but I know the timing was way off. The time is long, by at least half an hour (maybe as much as an hour, thanks to those rest stops). But what it has is 121.7 miles in 7:54:25. It also has 141W power and 5450' of elevation. Both of those numbers are badly wrong, though, thanks to the phone dying. I wish I knew how much (I was able to get Strava to fake the distance about right, but I lost an hour or more of both power and elevation, and there's no way to get that data to come out right). Similarly, I wonder what my "suffer score" would have been with an additional 30-40 minutes of 150-160bpm.
Still, I'm pretty happy with the results. I'd've been a lot happier if I'd taken the phone charger on the ride (I left it in the car, and that's why I was able to fake it so that Strava saw me finishing). I didn't realize how much the every-five-mile updates I had emailed to my wife and a couple of others would take out of the battery. The phone was at 100% charge at the start, and it will normally 8-9 hours on a full charge (each hour sucks about 8-10%, normally). The one other likely factor is that we might have gone out of cellular connectivity at some point, and that chews battery as well. Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing if that's the case.
Anyway, as the data is recorded, I did a 15.4mph average. If we assume fifty-four minutes of time added (just to make the numbers even), then that would bump it up to 17.4mph. If we add a couple more miles as well (it's probably short by about two miles), then we get 17.7mph. Better numbers than I'd've guessed I'd be able to do, given that I couldn't draft anything like I was planning on. And four hours of 18mph... I'm quite proud of that; if you'd asked me, beforehand, if I was capable of that, I'd've said no, even with another person helping.
In fact, using Strava's analysis page, I see 18.0mph average speed, with 170W average (158bpm heart rate; a few lower than I'd've guessed) over those four hours. Still lots of room for improvement, but I was very pleased.
So, lots to like about the ride. A couple of lessons: bring more electrolyte tablets (1/hour not enough). Two, bring the phone charger case. Three, some nuts for snacks would be good. Four, Quest bars work well. Five, don't expect food to be provided. Six, be more careful with directions.
Still, a very good experience, and one to build on.
This morning, as you'd expect, was totally about recovery. I didn't get things ready last night; I was too tired. I thought that might cause problems, but it did not. I got out on time, or maybe even a little early.
I wasn't sure about how far to go, but ended up doing my 15-mile loop in 66 minutes (13.6mph). I averaged 121bpm, and maxed at only 127bpm. I think that's about as good as I can reasonably hope for.
Power was 109W; a little lower than I'd've liked. I'd like it to be more like 120-130W. Well, I'll just have to keep working on it. Tomorrow will be another recovery day, though I'll at least add the three miles to get me to my 18-mile loop. After that, I'm not sure; I'd like to do the group ride on Wednesday, but I'm not sure if that's feasible. I'll have to see how my legs feel, I guess.
On Friday, I did my 18-mile loop, and did a pretty good job with it. The 13.3mph speed wasn't too great, but I did keep my heart rate down below 128, with less than a minute total above 125bpm. Rockin'. Power was 111W avg, which is a bit below where I would like to be, but not bad.
Saturday, to take it a little bit easier, I did my 15-mile loop, although I did a little bit worse. I finished in 66 minutes, which is 13.8mph. That's not too bad. And power was 115W avg, which is also pretty good. But I did much worse with heart rate; my max was 133bpm and I spent close to eight minutes over 125bpm. That's not good.
On Sunday, though, I was feeling pretty good. I left the house at 0445, went a mile or so, then turned back to get a couple more items. I got out of the house again at 0453, which was still earlier than my original plan. Unfortunately, I decided to avoid the Toll Road for getting to Reston, and went a couple miles out of my way when I missed a turn. Fortunately, I caught it pretty quickly, and got back on track.
When I got there, I found out that, as largely expected, the breakfast consisted of absolutely nothing I could eat. Bagels, fruit, and energy bars. Carbs, carbs, carbs. I guess they didn't want to deal with plates and utensils, but I would have killed for some eggs and bacon.
I had some time to wait, and found a few of my teammates. We hung out until 0630 (I had planned on leaving at 0600), then got on the road. We asked for directions to start, and were pointed in the wrong direction (boy, this is already sounding familiar). We corrected fairly quickly, although we did an extra half mile to a mile.
One thing that surprised me, was that I expected a mass start, and something like a peloton on the road. But it was ridiculously sparse. We ended up in a group of ten or so for the first fifteen miles.
And I should point out that we were "supposed" to do 18mph (which had me a bit concerned, beforehand), but we did manage to do that. In Purcellville, around mile thirty, was when we really started dropping people. In fact, our group of ten fell down to three, there. It was me, one teammate, and another guy we didn't know who was hanging back a bit (though he decided to pass us a few miles up from there).
That just left my teammate and I, and we worked out a system. He had aerobars (for triathlon-guy), so he led on the downhills (mostly), and I would generally pass him and lead on the uphills. That worked well to the halfway point, when I started flagging (my first time dealing with cramps in my thighs, along with general fatigue).
But we kept going for quite a while. Much longer than we should have, it turns out, as we took a wrong turn in Middleburg that took us seven miles out of our way through serious hills (well, as serious as it gets in that area; nothing compared to real mountains, of course). And, of course, I ran out of water in that detour. Not fun.
We did, eventually, figure out our mistake, though, and got back on course. Although we hit that point on our detour, we actually did keep our 18mph speed through milemarker 72 (not really sure, after that).
Anyway, we finally hit the next rest stop at about milemarker 82, and I had to stop there, for a while, to get my muscles to uncramp (drank a lot of water, some energy drink, and had a couple electrolyte pills). Plus, the rest helped a lot.
My teammate needed to continue on, so I didn't see him again. Several people got to, and/or left, the rest stop while I was resting. I mention that because, once I got moving, I managed to pass everyone else over the next 5-8 miles after leaving (and that made me happy).
From there, I did pretty well, keeping going. I still had some cramping, but they never got nearly as bad as at that rest stop. It helped, though, that I had a couple bananas (terrible, vis a vis my diet, but I needed the potassium) at subsequent rest stops.
The rest of the way was a bit of a struggle, and I stopped at every rest stop along the way. Also, when I was leaving Purcellville, my phone got to the point where it stops recording (right at 99.9 miles, which is funny, considering I had set my phone up to email a few people every five miles).
Not much else to say, really; I did it, and it was a struggle. The last couple miles, I took a pull from a woman on a time trial bike; I have no pride about that sort of thing.
Since my phone died, I don't really know what my final time was. I managed to get it to show me finishing, but I know the timing was way off. The time is long, by at least half an hour (maybe as much as an hour, thanks to those rest stops). But what it has is 121.7 miles in 7:54:25. It also has 141W power and 5450' of elevation. Both of those numbers are badly wrong, though, thanks to the phone dying. I wish I knew how much (I was able to get Strava to fake the distance about right, but I lost an hour or more of both power and elevation, and there's no way to get that data to come out right). Similarly, I wonder what my "suffer score" would have been with an additional 30-40 minutes of 150-160bpm.
Still, I'm pretty happy with the results. I'd've been a lot happier if I'd taken the phone charger on the ride (I left it in the car, and that's why I was able to fake it so that Strava saw me finishing). I didn't realize how much the every-five-mile updates I had emailed to my wife and a couple of others would take out of the battery. The phone was at 100% charge at the start, and it will normally 8-9 hours on a full charge (each hour sucks about 8-10%, normally). The one other likely factor is that we might have gone out of cellular connectivity at some point, and that chews battery as well. Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing if that's the case.
Anyway, as the data is recorded, I did a 15.4mph average. If we assume fifty-four minutes of time added (just to make the numbers even), then that would bump it up to 17.4mph. If we add a couple more miles as well (it's probably short by about two miles), then we get 17.7mph. Better numbers than I'd've guessed I'd be able to do, given that I couldn't draft anything like I was planning on. And four hours of 18mph... I'm quite proud of that; if you'd asked me, beforehand, if I was capable of that, I'd've said no, even with another person helping.
In fact, using Strava's analysis page, I see 18.0mph average speed, with 170W average (158bpm heart rate; a few lower than I'd've guessed) over those four hours. Still lots of room for improvement, but I was very pleased.
So, lots to like about the ride. A couple of lessons: bring more electrolyte tablets (1/hour not enough). Two, bring the phone charger case. Three, some nuts for snacks would be good. Four, Quest bars work well. Five, don't expect food to be provided. Six, be more careful with directions.
Still, a very good experience, and one to build on.
This morning, as you'd expect, was totally about recovery. I didn't get things ready last night; I was too tired. I thought that might cause problems, but it did not. I got out on time, or maybe even a little early.
I wasn't sure about how far to go, but ended up doing my 15-mile loop in 66 minutes (13.6mph). I averaged 121bpm, and maxed at only 127bpm. I think that's about as good as I can reasonably hope for.
Power was 109W; a little lower than I'd've liked. I'd like it to be more like 120-130W. Well, I'll just have to keep working on it. Tomorrow will be another recovery day, though I'll at least add the three miles to get me to my 18-mile loop. After that, I'm not sure; I'd like to do the group ride on Wednesday, but I'm not sure if that's feasible. I'll have to see how my legs feel, I guess.
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.
20150423
"Like ships in the night..."
Just noticed a really neat, fairly new (I saw the link a couple days ago, I think) feature on Strava called fly-by. Essentially, it shows your ride and all the people with whom you crossed paths on that ride.
Look in the upper left, and it'll play them like a video, so you can see where other people were while you were riding. And when you do the animation, it'll animate them, as well. I don't know, if you're doing something like a short race, if it'll give enough detail to see jockeying going on in a ride (I suspect not), but it's still really awesome.
I'd also call it evil, in terms of time-wasting potential.
But it's fantastic, too, if you meet someone on the road or trail, and can't remember their name (or how to spell it). Now you can just watch your ride, and look for the intersection or overlap. Sheer genius.
Disappointed that this now means I know that the person who passed me this morning is not on Strava (well, or hasn't uploaded their ride yet, I guess). Was curious.
Look in the upper left, and it'll play them like a video, so you can see where other people were while you were riding. And when you do the animation, it'll animate them, as well. I don't know, if you're doing something like a short race, if it'll give enough detail to see jockeying going on in a ride (I suspect not), but it's still really awesome.
I'd also call it evil, in terms of time-wasting potential.
But it's fantastic, too, if you meet someone on the road or trail, and can't remember their name (or how to spell it). Now you can just watch your ride, and look for the intersection or overlap. Sheer genius.
Disappointed that this now means I know that the person who passed me this morning is not on Strava (well, or hasn't uploaded their ride yet, I guess). Was curious.
20150323
Dis/charge
Mix of feelings on the bike riding, this weekend. Saturday, I was hoping to join a group ride, but it seems that just about everyone was out of town (the one guy who wasn't apparently slept in). So I showed up, hung around for a few minutes to see if anyone else made it, then decided to get riding.
Showing up was already a little interesting, though. I'd worn my heavy jersey, which I figured would be ok for a hard ride at right around freezing. But I had a pretty light base layer underneath, and was chilled on the way to the meet-up. So I turned around a couple minutes in, and went back for a jacket. Luckily, I was a little early to begin with, and still made it on time. Not that it mattered.
By the time I'd gotten there, I realized that I hadn't seen anything from my heart rate meter, and my power meter had cut out after about a mile. Not feeling in tip-top shape, and missing both of those, I decided to make it an easy ride. I ended up doing about 14.25 miles, and didn't go any further because my hands were cold (god, that sounds way too familiar). It was a peaceful ride, though, so no major complaints.
I replaced the heart rate meter battery afterwards, and took the battery out of the power meter. But, upon opening the power meter cover, I noticed that the battery wasn't seated, so I tried reseating it and checking on it. Everything looked good. Not terribly pleased about that, as a long-term prospect, though it was nice not needing to change the battery right now.
I had gotten a new saddle as well (slightly wider; I figured it wouldn't hit that spot that got me to switch over to the moon saddle for a couple days), and meant to change that, but I had already gotten distracted by the hockey game. So when I remembered it, I decided it was already too late, and I needed to go to sleep. Which I did.
So I got up in the morning, planning on a hard ride. Since I didn't sleep much, I debated if I should do a hard ride, or not, but decided that I had to get one in. I didn't set out to break any records, but managed sixteen PRs, two of which were KOMs. One of those KOMs, in fact, was on that long stretch from Yorktown to Four Mile Run on George Mason Dr that I tried to break the other day. Actually, I tied the KOM, but still beat my run from the other day by a good forty seconds. The only explanation I can come up with is that I had to slow down less for the lights; my power was 216W avg both times. Well, and it was a little warmer; that should make a tiny bit of difference.
Anyway, the point being that I completely kicked ass, as far as Strava was concerned. What was weird, though, was that my average power was actually lower than the other day (181W vs 188W). And my power curve for the ride didn't look that great; the only place I raised the curve was for times over an hour-seventeen. It wasn't even that close until about fifty minutes.
And speaking of fifty, my other KOM on the ride was a climb up Pendleton St in Old Town, Alexandria. I wasn't actually trying hard on that one, but still managed to cut my time by two seconds, which was enough to move me from a tie for second to a tie for first, at fifty seconds. I guess I must have just been pacing myself better. The power numbers for both rides are identical.
Anyway, the ride does show that power isn't everything, when it comes to riding fast. I wish I knew what I did so well, though, as I'd like to repeat it.
Also, I should point out that the ride was 32 miles, a bit longer than I usually do, and I set more records on the back half than on the front. I kind of wish I'd had some electrolyte drink for the tail end, though; water was all I took with me. Next time I'll definitely do better with that.
The other upshot is that I ended up very tired, but very satisfied, with the performance. In fact, the average speed for the whole ride was 17.9mph, which is pretty decent given both the distance and the elevation gain (1400'). Plus, I was going into a lot of wind for a goodly chunk of it.
Also, in a chunk of that windy part, I decided to try pushing really hard, really consistently, and I think I've got a handle on my lactate threshold heart rate, so that should help with setting heart rate zones.
I'm a bit amused, too. I thought Strava's March climbing challenge had ended the day before, with me completing it by a tiny bit. But it turns out that yesterday was the last day, so I blew it away by like 500m, when I thought I'd just barely finished. I like the jerseys, too; I'm tempted to get one (I've never bought a Strava jersey before; they're quite expensive).
That left today's ride. Obviously, after pushing like that yesterday, I was going to take it easy this morning. No excitement with the kids before getting out, today, which was good. I had to take my second-choice jacket, which wasn't.
It was a pretty calm ride, and mostly went well. The only bad part was that I was having a little trouble keeping my heart rate down. I'm looking now, and I only had three minutes and change over 125, which is better than I thought, but I'm betting that more than half of the remaining time was between 120 and 125. That would bother me a lot less if my power numbers weren't so low: the average was only 85W, which is terrible. At that heart rate, I should be pushing 120W or so.
I don't know... I'm still not feeling completely better, but I'm also not feeling terrible. I don't know what to make of it. Anyway, tomorrow will also be an easy day, and I'm trying to figure out what to do after that. I need to take a day off before the end of the week, and it'd be nice to get a 100-ish mile ride in.
It'd be good practice for the Tour de Cure ride, as well as completing the Strava Grand Fondo 150 challenge. I'm kind of looking to the weather to decide, and it looks like the weather doesn't really want to cooperate. We'll see, I guess.
Showing up was already a little interesting, though. I'd worn my heavy jersey, which I figured would be ok for a hard ride at right around freezing. But I had a pretty light base layer underneath, and was chilled on the way to the meet-up. So I turned around a couple minutes in, and went back for a jacket. Luckily, I was a little early to begin with, and still made it on time. Not that it mattered.
By the time I'd gotten there, I realized that I hadn't seen anything from my heart rate meter, and my power meter had cut out after about a mile. Not feeling in tip-top shape, and missing both of those, I decided to make it an easy ride. I ended up doing about 14.25 miles, and didn't go any further because my hands were cold (god, that sounds way too familiar). It was a peaceful ride, though, so no major complaints.
I replaced the heart rate meter battery afterwards, and took the battery out of the power meter. But, upon opening the power meter cover, I noticed that the battery wasn't seated, so I tried reseating it and checking on it. Everything looked good. Not terribly pleased about that, as a long-term prospect, though it was nice not needing to change the battery right now.
I had gotten a new saddle as well (slightly wider; I figured it wouldn't hit that spot that got me to switch over to the moon saddle for a couple days), and meant to change that, but I had already gotten distracted by the hockey game. So when I remembered it, I decided it was already too late, and I needed to go to sleep. Which I did.
So I got up in the morning, planning on a hard ride. Since I didn't sleep much, I debated if I should do a hard ride, or not, but decided that I had to get one in. I didn't set out to break any records, but managed sixteen PRs, two of which were KOMs. One of those KOMs, in fact, was on that long stretch from Yorktown to Four Mile Run on George Mason Dr that I tried to break the other day. Actually, I tied the KOM, but still beat my run from the other day by a good forty seconds. The only explanation I can come up with is that I had to slow down less for the lights; my power was 216W avg both times. Well, and it was a little warmer; that should make a tiny bit of difference.
Anyway, the point being that I completely kicked ass, as far as Strava was concerned. What was weird, though, was that my average power was actually lower than the other day (181W vs 188W). And my power curve for the ride didn't look that great; the only place I raised the curve was for times over an hour-seventeen. It wasn't even that close until about fifty minutes.
And speaking of fifty, my other KOM on the ride was a climb up Pendleton St in Old Town, Alexandria. I wasn't actually trying hard on that one, but still managed to cut my time by two seconds, which was enough to move me from a tie for second to a tie for first, at fifty seconds. I guess I must have just been pacing myself better. The power numbers for both rides are identical.
Anyway, the ride does show that power isn't everything, when it comes to riding fast. I wish I knew what I did so well, though, as I'd like to repeat it.
Also, I should point out that the ride was 32 miles, a bit longer than I usually do, and I set more records on the back half than on the front. I kind of wish I'd had some electrolyte drink for the tail end, though; water was all I took with me. Next time I'll definitely do better with that.
The other upshot is that I ended up very tired, but very satisfied, with the performance. In fact, the average speed for the whole ride was 17.9mph, which is pretty decent given both the distance and the elevation gain (1400'). Plus, I was going into a lot of wind for a goodly chunk of it.
Also, in a chunk of that windy part, I decided to try pushing really hard, really consistently, and I think I've got a handle on my lactate threshold heart rate, so that should help with setting heart rate zones.
I'm a bit amused, too. I thought Strava's March climbing challenge had ended the day before, with me completing it by a tiny bit. But it turns out that yesterday was the last day, so I blew it away by like 500m, when I thought I'd just barely finished. I like the jerseys, too; I'm tempted to get one (I've never bought a Strava jersey before; they're quite expensive).
That left today's ride. Obviously, after pushing like that yesterday, I was going to take it easy this morning. No excitement with the kids before getting out, today, which was good. I had to take my second-choice jacket, which wasn't.
It was a pretty calm ride, and mostly went well. The only bad part was that I was having a little trouble keeping my heart rate down. I'm looking now, and I only had three minutes and change over 125, which is better than I thought, but I'm betting that more than half of the remaining time was between 120 and 125. That would bother me a lot less if my power numbers weren't so low: the average was only 85W, which is terrible. At that heart rate, I should be pushing 120W or so.
I don't know... I'm still not feeling completely better, but I'm also not feeling terrible. I don't know what to make of it. Anyway, tomorrow will also be an easy day, and I'm trying to figure out what to do after that. I need to take a day off before the end of the week, and it'd be nice to get a 100-ish mile ride in.
It'd be good practice for the Tour de Cure ride, as well as completing the Strava Grand Fondo 150 challenge. I'm kind of looking to the weather to decide, and it looks like the weather doesn't really want to cooperate. We'll see, I guess.
20150103
Not recovering
The predicted precipitation held off long enough for the temperature to get above freezing, this morning, which worked well for me in a number of ways. I didn't need to use the hybrid, and so I didn't have any need to turn the ride into a recovery one.
So I went to really push, today. I probably wasn't quite focused enough on where to push, and where not to (I didn't really pace myself anywhere, except for a tiny bit before a couple of segments I wanted to try to crush).
How'd that work out? Well, not too badly. I set fewer PRs than I'd hoped, though I did set a few. And I was very close to setting a few more.
The one thing that torques me is that Potomac Ave segment that I mentioned yesterday. I crushed my previous best for power along that segment, with 265W, but it still ended up as only my third-best run, forty seconds behind my best. I'd like to know what was going on there (the wind was not blowing especially hard, and not in to my face, as best I could tell); I would've expected to do better.
Arlington Cemetary up to Courthouse was another segment I was looking to crush, and it's another where I didn't set a record. But it was a virtual tie for most power along that segment (a couple Watts ahead of my previous high), and was twelve seconds behind my record.
There's also a sprint from King St (in Alexandria) up almost to Pendleton. I hadn't planned to try to kill that one, but turned it on as I was getting there. No record, but it was only a couple seconds off my KOM score. In fact, this still would be the third best overall.
There's a short climb that goes up Pendleton St as well. That one I did plan to kill, and I did. Adding 37W to my previous high got me four fewer seconds and moved me from seventh to second, overall. I still think I can do better, but not so soon after the other sprint.
Pendleton did get me in trouble, almost, though, when I got to Rt 1. I wasn't paying attention to which street I was about to cross, and approached to see at a higher speed than one would recommend. I fishtailed a bit in trying to stop, went over, and then pulled the bike back over top of me to get it off the other road.
A bit scary, but thankfully I wasn't all that close to being run over. Un-thankfully, I noticed after getting up that I'd popped the chain as well, in the excitement. But really, the only thing that matters is that I wasn't hurt. As I said, it was a bit scary.
Thankfully, that was the only bit of scariness on the ride. Overall, I was pretty happy with my performance. Weighted average power was a bit low (237 rather than the 245-250 I'm trying to push), but my peak power numbers were very good (552/485/334/298/279/244 for 20s/60s/5m/10m/20m/hr; the first four are records, and the latter two are each off by a single Watt). I guess that's a sign that I didn't push any extreme (1kW+) power numbers. Also, I should point out that I was able to identify better numbers for the first two using Strava's analysis tools (573W and 499W, respectively); I think Cyclemeter might have a bug, or something weird's going on with one or both tools.
Hmm... Actually, just looked at Strava's power curve tool, and get even better numbers for both intervals: 623W and 513W. For the longer durations, however, I get smaller numbers than via Cyclemeter. Way smaller. Color me confused.
Also, had a big gap between writing the first sections and the last couple paragraphs. A couple things occurred to me about why that Potomac Ave time might be worse, despite significantly better power. I've changed RFLKT mounts (just did that last night), put my tools in a seat bag, had racing blade rear fender on, changed wheels/tires, and was wearing very bulky gloves. Two of those, though, I would've thought would help. Dunno.
Oh, and two general notes that I've been thinking about for a while (but haven't written). I think Strava is a great motivation tool, even without any of the analysis stuff. Just being able to input goals is quite a help. And further about that polarized training video I mentioned a week or two ago. I think the reason it works is the same as the old adage about lifting weights. "Low reps with large weights builds muscle; high reps with low weights builds strength".
Doing recovery rides are equivalent to lots of reps with low weight, so they help, even beyond the muscle recovery benefits. So maybe that's why it's a good training philosophy.
Anyway, that's it for today; I should probably try to catch up on the Caps later.
So I went to really push, today. I probably wasn't quite focused enough on where to push, and where not to (I didn't really pace myself anywhere, except for a tiny bit before a couple of segments I wanted to try to crush).
How'd that work out? Well, not too badly. I set fewer PRs than I'd hoped, though I did set a few. And I was very close to setting a few more.
The one thing that torques me is that Potomac Ave segment that I mentioned yesterday. I crushed my previous best for power along that segment, with 265W, but it still ended up as only my third-best run, forty seconds behind my best. I'd like to know what was going on there (the wind was not blowing especially hard, and not in to my face, as best I could tell); I would've expected to do better.
Arlington Cemetary up to Courthouse was another segment I was looking to crush, and it's another where I didn't set a record. But it was a virtual tie for most power along that segment (a couple Watts ahead of my previous high), and was twelve seconds behind my record.
There's also a sprint from King St (in Alexandria) up almost to Pendleton. I hadn't planned to try to kill that one, but turned it on as I was getting there. No record, but it was only a couple seconds off my KOM score. In fact, this still would be the third best overall.
There's a short climb that goes up Pendleton St as well. That one I did plan to kill, and I did. Adding 37W to my previous high got me four fewer seconds and moved me from seventh to second, overall. I still think I can do better, but not so soon after the other sprint.
Pendleton did get me in trouble, almost, though, when I got to Rt 1. I wasn't paying attention to which street I was about to cross, and approached to see at a higher speed than one would recommend. I fishtailed a bit in trying to stop, went over, and then pulled the bike back over top of me to get it off the other road.
A bit scary, but thankfully I wasn't all that close to being run over. Un-thankfully, I noticed after getting up that I'd popped the chain as well, in the excitement. But really, the only thing that matters is that I wasn't hurt. As I said, it was a bit scary.
Thankfully, that was the only bit of scariness on the ride. Overall, I was pretty happy with my performance. Weighted average power was a bit low (237 rather than the 245-250 I'm trying to push), but my peak power numbers were very good (552/485/334/298/279/244 for 20s/60s/5m/10m/20m/hr; the first four are records, and the latter two are each off by a single Watt). I guess that's a sign that I didn't push any extreme (1kW+) power numbers. Also, I should point out that I was able to identify better numbers for the first two using Strava's analysis tools (573W and 499W, respectively); I think Cyclemeter might have a bug, or something weird's going on with one or both tools.
Hmm... Actually, just looked at Strava's power curve tool, and get even better numbers for both intervals: 623W and 513W. For the longer durations, however, I get smaller numbers than via Cyclemeter. Way smaller. Color me confused.
Also, had a big gap between writing the first sections and the last couple paragraphs. A couple things occurred to me about why that Potomac Ave time might be worse, despite significantly better power. I've changed RFLKT mounts (just did that last night), put my tools in a seat bag, had racing blade rear fender on, changed wheels/tires, and was wearing very bulky gloves. Two of those, though, I would've thought would help. Dunno.
Oh, and two general notes that I've been thinking about for a while (but haven't written). I think Strava is a great motivation tool, even without any of the analysis stuff. Just being able to input goals is quite a help. And further about that polarized training video I mentioned a week or two ago. I think the reason it works is the same as the old adage about lifting weights. "Low reps with large weights builds muscle; high reps with low weights builds strength".
Doing recovery rides are equivalent to lots of reps with low weight, so they help, even beyond the muscle recovery benefits. So maybe that's why it's a good training philosophy.
Anyway, that's it for today; I should probably try to catch up on the Caps later.
20141001
Great ride
I decided to take yesterday off from work, and just go out and ride. My goal was to do my first century, partially for its own sake, and partially to hit the Gran Fondo challenge for the month on Strava.
Since it was my first ride over 35 miles, I wasn't sure how it was going to work out. I knew, starting out, that the direct trip where I was going was about 44 miles, so I knew I'd have to tack some extra stuff onto the end if I wanted to reach a full century. My plan was to complete my normal trail loop to round it out.
Well, things started pretty well; I made it out to Purcellville in 2:20, which was an 18mph average (faster than I'd planned, actually). I'd stopped twice, for five or ten minutes each, to rest a little and eat something.
The way back went considerably less well. In the first mile, on the way back, my chain popped off while crossing a street and my Speed/Cadence sensor fell off as well. I managed to get the bike and sensor off the road without incident (though doubtless annoying the drivers). Some good luck; I was able to find the rubber piece that holds the sensor on the bike. I figured that leaving the sensor off would just mean I'd lose cadence tracking, which I don't much care about for such a long-distance ride. I figured the GPS on the phone would give me speed and distance, so I'd just ride home without taking the time to put the sensor back on.
And either I'm getting better, or was a bit lucky that the chain went back on very easily.
So I continued on. I noticed right away that the speed wasn't updating, but didn't notice for close to six miles that the distance wasn't updating either. At that point, I decided that I needed to put the sensor back on, and stopped to do that. A pain, although less of one than I'd guessed it'd be.
From there, I kept riding. I made it nine more miles before I needed to stop again (this time, five minutes that was largely a bathroom break). Then only three miles before my next stop, and eight more for my next stop. Bad stretch.
From there, I was on familiar ground and really didn't want to stop, and managed to push all the way home (though it was a tough slog). I didn't even try to do the extra loop; I was limping home as it was. Because that six miles or so was missing from the recording, I managed to push myself for an extra mile and a half loop to make sure I'd clear 130km for the Gran Fondo, but even that was itself a challenge.
It took me a while to somewhat recover, but the good part was that my only pain was the pain of overworked muscles, especially my thighs.
I mentioned doing the Retuel fitting, and did do that. We adjusted my stem a bit higher, and moved my seat up and forwards a bit. The fitter said my technique is very good; I've got very little side-to-side in my pedaling. I also need to get a zero-offset seatpost (on order on Amazon, although it'll apparently take a depressingly long time to arrive) and a narrower handlebar (on order from the shop that did the fitting).
Because of the narrower handlebar thing, I did use the tops of my bars more than normal, which might have helped stave off the neck problems that I often end up feeling. And I'm sure that moving the seat closer helped with that, since it raised my back angle five degrees or so.
All of which is a long-winded way of saying that I think the Retul fitting was worthwhile. Worth that amount? Not yet sure. But definitely valuable. If I start getting through my normal 20-25 mile workouts without pain, especially if it comes with improving speed, then it will have been worth the price.
Happily, I did do enough for the Gran Fondo challenge, finishing with 138km (a weird number, to be sure), but eleven or so miles short of my hoped-for century. But I made it, and back, and was in time to shower and change and pick up the kids from school. And no injuries (I did have a couple of close calls towards the end, when I was tired; need to watch that) or nagging issues. So I'll call the day a success.
As a side note, I talked to a very experienced cyclist at one of my stops, and he said the general recommendation is to extend your distance by about 10% weekly. I kind of chuckled at that. My progression has been 7.4 -> 3.66 -> 24.7 -> 51.2 -> 49.0 -> 71.5 -> 89.5 -> 144.5 -> 142.3 -> 116.3 (with three days left). If I get sixty more in the remainder of the week, that'll work out to an average increase of about 20%. If I instead try to apply that to longest ride, it's about 3.8 -> 3.7 -> 6.5 -> 9.25 -> 8.6 -> 10.9 -> 21 -> 35 -> 26.3 -> 89. Which is only a hair more, actually.
Less than I'd guessed, actually. And a little bit deceptive; I don't really have the time to do more than 140-150 miles a week, unless I speed up a bit. I'm mostly riding around 18-19 mph; pushing that to 21mph would let me add another ten or twelve miles. I guess I need to work on my climbing, to make that a realistic hope. And find some people to do hard, pace-line rides; that would help quite a bit. I'm working on that; we'll find out Saturday how I've done. Hopefully that group won't just end up dropping me after a few miles.
Since it was my first ride over 35 miles, I wasn't sure how it was going to work out. I knew, starting out, that the direct trip where I was going was about 44 miles, so I knew I'd have to tack some extra stuff onto the end if I wanted to reach a full century. My plan was to complete my normal trail loop to round it out.
Well, things started pretty well; I made it out to Purcellville in 2:20, which was an 18mph average (faster than I'd planned, actually). I'd stopped twice, for five or ten minutes each, to rest a little and eat something.
The way back went considerably less well. In the first mile, on the way back, my chain popped off while crossing a street and my Speed/Cadence sensor fell off as well. I managed to get the bike and sensor off the road without incident (though doubtless annoying the drivers). Some good luck; I was able to find the rubber piece that holds the sensor on the bike. I figured that leaving the sensor off would just mean I'd lose cadence tracking, which I don't much care about for such a long-distance ride. I figured the GPS on the phone would give me speed and distance, so I'd just ride home without taking the time to put the sensor back on.
And either I'm getting better, or was a bit lucky that the chain went back on very easily.
So I continued on. I noticed right away that the speed wasn't updating, but didn't notice for close to six miles that the distance wasn't updating either. At that point, I decided that I needed to put the sensor back on, and stopped to do that. A pain, although less of one than I'd guessed it'd be.
From there, I kept riding. I made it nine more miles before I needed to stop again (this time, five minutes that was largely a bathroom break). Then only three miles before my next stop, and eight more for my next stop. Bad stretch.
From there, I was on familiar ground and really didn't want to stop, and managed to push all the way home (though it was a tough slog). I didn't even try to do the extra loop; I was limping home as it was. Because that six miles or so was missing from the recording, I managed to push myself for an extra mile and a half loop to make sure I'd clear 130km for the Gran Fondo, but even that was itself a challenge.
It took me a while to somewhat recover, but the good part was that my only pain was the pain of overworked muscles, especially my thighs.
I mentioned doing the Retuel fitting, and did do that. We adjusted my stem a bit higher, and moved my seat up and forwards a bit. The fitter said my technique is very good; I've got very little side-to-side in my pedaling. I also need to get a zero-offset seatpost (on order on Amazon, although it'll apparently take a depressingly long time to arrive) and a narrower handlebar (on order from the shop that did the fitting).
Because of the narrower handlebar thing, I did use the tops of my bars more than normal, which might have helped stave off the neck problems that I often end up feeling. And I'm sure that moving the seat closer helped with that, since it raised my back angle five degrees or so.
All of which is a long-winded way of saying that I think the Retul fitting was worthwhile. Worth that amount? Not yet sure. But definitely valuable. If I start getting through my normal 20-25 mile workouts without pain, especially if it comes with improving speed, then it will have been worth the price.
Happily, I did do enough for the Gran Fondo challenge, finishing with 138km (a weird number, to be sure), but eleven or so miles short of my hoped-for century. But I made it, and back, and was in time to shower and change and pick up the kids from school. And no injuries (I did have a couple of close calls towards the end, when I was tired; need to watch that) or nagging issues. So I'll call the day a success.
As a side note, I talked to a very experienced cyclist at one of my stops, and he said the general recommendation is to extend your distance by about 10% weekly. I kind of chuckled at that. My progression has been 7.4 -> 3.66 -> 24.7 -> 51.2 -> 49.0 -> 71.5 -> 89.5 -> 144.5 -> 142.3 -> 116.3 (with three days left). If I get sixty more in the remainder of the week, that'll work out to an average increase of about 20%. If I instead try to apply that to longest ride, it's about 3.8 -> 3.7 -> 6.5 -> 9.25 -> 8.6 -> 10.9 -> 21 -> 35 -> 26.3 -> 89. Which is only a hair more, actually.
Less than I'd guessed, actually. And a little bit deceptive; I don't really have the time to do more than 140-150 miles a week, unless I speed up a bit. I'm mostly riding around 18-19 mph; pushing that to 21mph would let me add another ten or twelve miles. I guess I need to work on my climbing, to make that a realistic hope. And find some people to do hard, pace-line rides; that would help quite a bit. I'm working on that; we'll find out Saturday how I've done. Hopefully that group won't just end up dropping me after a few miles.
20140905
New appreciation for pro cyclists
I've switched to a longer bike ride in the mornings, which takes me up a steep hill about a mile from my house. The hill's only 74 feet tall, according to strava, but at an 8% grade. One of the segments covering it is called the 'Williamsburg Soulcrusher'; slightly over the top, I'll admit, but I'd call it the Legcrusher without a second thought.
It's made a bit worse by having a quarter-mile or so of slight incline leading up to it, where you can see it coming. Ugh.
Anyway, it gives me a lot more appreciation for the Tour de France riders, who regularly face inclines that steep that are far, far longer than that. I certainly don't envy them those climbs.
It's made a bit worse by having a quarter-mile or so of slight incline leading up to it, where you can see it coming. Ugh.
Anyway, it gives me a lot more appreciation for the Tour de France riders, who regularly face inclines that steep that are far, far longer than that. I certainly don't envy them those climbs.
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