Just noticed Strava says 59.8mph! Don’t know why it differs from Garmin
First club ride. 100km +1250m in the Kent countryside.
Enjoyable. Hard work on the last climb though, I’m not used to the kind of on/off pacing of club rides.
Wrapped up my training block today. Got out at 5 am to beat the heat, was low 70’s already with dew points at about the same temp. Nothing will make mid 70’s feel super hot like having zero sweat evaporate! Managed to hold 200+ watts on the TT bike for the full ride, I’ll take that on the end of this week and block.
Finished the week with 526 miles and 28 hours. 1517 TSS. Felt pretty decent all things considering, Started to come apart the last 5 miles today. Happy with where I’m at currently for next month’s Silver State 508.
Threw in a 7 minute and 3 minute effort to try and grab a couple of KOM’s with success(I’m sure those had nothing to do with coming apart at the end today… ). Bring on the recovery week!
Ouch!! Huge week
My usual crowd were away so I plotted a solo gravel ride but as I was going to bed another group posted they were going to Skegness. Its a flat and boring ride that I’ve never done but in company it would be a good option, so I opted for that it was a bit windy out which led to a good pace but on the way back the weaker riders succumbed to what was now a head wind. You’d have to be pretty cruel to leave anyone exposed in the flat fens, even on a relatively calm day, so there was a lot of soft pedalling on the way back. The only negative was because we were going that slow despite the heat my arms were freezing which led to cold numb and sore arms, wrist and hands :-/
Lol, the Garmin dropped the PM connection at the Boston cafe stop and tyring to get it back on the move I picked up someone else’s and it must be dual sided and it doesn’t look like they have a steady cadence At the lunch stop Skeggy I figured out how to reactivate my single sided pm
Prince William County, VA, USA // Reversed steigerungs
Not my best control of power, but after driving from Virginia to Kansas and back over five days to drop off our daughter at college, I’ll take it.
This is what it was supposed to look like - 1 min @ VO2, 3 min @ threshold, 4 min @ tempo.
Oh, and it was warm. Not as hot as Kansas (heat index hit 120F while we were there), but significantly warmer than my previous rides.
Did Naveed outdoors by the FNLD GRVL big loop back straights. Autumn is slowly but surely coming around these corners.
I had a short hour recovery in my calendar today (Bess) so like I’ve done on other recovery weeks, associated my commute with it and kept my HR in Z1. I needed to scope out a track too, I was going to wait till I had my gravel bike but it looked a fairly compact surface so I used the road bike.
I am seriously missing the views @greenbike and @morzak are posting! However, despite not riding the same roads you were on then, they look remarkably similar to roads I’ve ridden many times in Switzerland, lending truth to my daughter’s statement that “if you’ve seen a beautiful picture of Switzerland, it looks exactly like that and now you don’t have to go.” Being there, experiencing the climbs, the views, the food (Chäsbrätl, Älpermagronen, etc), and the descents, can’t be felt through pics.
A 118mi ride instead of Rest, nice.
A belated congratulations. Looks like the roads were relatively peaceful.
Nice rides with a bonus of weather.
Congratulations! I was supposed to do that but then the family trip abroad was scheduled. Perhaps it was fortuitous as my gravel bike refused to leave Switzerland, leaving without a ride for the D2R2.
Reading about these KOM hunts and all of the stellar climbing… well, I have this:
At least I’m rested. Strava says I’ve done 7hrs this month, and that is inflated as it includes light to moderate weights while in Korea on a family trip.
Today was my first ride in four weeks. I ran twice in four weeks, once (in Boston right before flying to Korea) to create a small tear in my soleus (deep calf muscle) and again (near the end of the Korea trip in Seoul) to create a large tear in the same soleus muscle. (Ultrasound verified the small and larger tear in Korea, apparently I wasn’t ready to resume running regardless of my intentionally slow speed.) Today’s ride is from the MIT Cycling Club website and is called the “Coffee Ride.” It had scenery, but it wasn’t Switzerland and there were few opportunities to just cruise. There was some climbing of 4-6% (I think I saw the Garmin report 7%!), which was enough for my unfit self, but 900’ of ascent across 27mi isn’t a lot of climbing. Still, it felt good to get out on the bike in pleasant weather in the upper 70s to mid 80s (up to 30C).
While the pics show little to no traffic, there were other people out there, whether cars or commuters or walkers or runners, to check the speed. That’s ok, I need Z2. I’m not really complaining, as riding is better that not riding, and it’s not terrible riding and it could be less safe.
On my gravel bike, a frame has been found. I’ll be sticking with the Exploro frameset as the other 3T gravel frames have a different geometry. No ETA when the Italians will get the frame to my Swiss bike shop, so no ETA on when I’ll get it, but hopefully soon as I’m planning on BWR Kansas Oct 14.
Welcome back!
@mountainrunner welcome back! I’m sorry to hear about your muscle tears - heal quickly - but excited for your family to be back together again!
Your first pic of Boston’s green walkways / cycleways brings back memories. Last summer I spent over a week in a hotel for a training course, but brought my bike and got away a couple of times for some rides. Minuteman Trail is good for some Z2 riding. The hill leading up to Robbins Farm Park is good for 4-minute intervals, and it is just off of the Minuteman. There’s also that 10-mile TT loop from an earlier post. None are as scenic or hilly as Switzerland, though.
Best of luck getting ready for BWR. Looking forward to some pics and your thoughts after the event.
(Are you driving or flying to Kansas? My wife and I just dropped our daughter off at college there. It took us about 15 hours driving to get there from Virginia.)
Yes, it’s good for the fam to be back together, but that was temporary. I spent last week (through Monday) moving the daughter into her school in California. The son will be going to school in Boston.
I’ve only done three (four?) rides here, and not the TT loop yet. These routes are, except for a group ride (Green Line Velo four weeks ago), from the MIT Cycling Club route list. I’m sure I’ll find one or more routes that better fit me. I was (am?) spoiled with the riding options (and road conditions) before.
I’m flying to Kansas for PhD research at the Truman Library the week prior, and may return to the Truman lib after BWR but might go onward to the Eisenhower library after. My wife may need our one car then, so won’t be driving there. We’re now empty nesters, so I have more flexibility.
We drove past the Truman Library on our trip to Kansas taking the daughter to her freshman year. Beautiful country that I haven’t spent much time in. Added a few places to potential second-career options for whenever I’m done with this current gig.
What are you getting your PhD in?
Right there with you…
This week I’m restarting training after some reduced riding to rehab a weird thumb/elbow issue.
Strava has my cycling at 15.7 hours this month, so again, I’m right there with ya.
Last night wasn’t too shabby:
Started hot, got some delta breeze, cooled a bit. The 20-second power surges / accelerations / sprints were fun, that last one I was on a 35mph road and the sprint topped out at 32mph / 51kph about a half mile before a red light. Turned and looked to my left at a surprised driver
One of those rare times when I only got stopped by 1 traffic light, and it was short:
Also, got some easy aerobic work during Monday morning tropical storm cleanup:
About 75 minutes of raking up dead coastal redwood branches from the backyard, frontyard, and road. Perfect thing to do on the Monday morning work sync call!!!
@WindWarrior @mountainrunner check. Mine is self-imposed after blowing up part way through Specialty, starting a new job, and some other life events. As a result I’m doing the JOIN LSRF plan until about 1 Oct, then starting the FasCat 10-Week off season plan. TBD if I’ll use JOIN or TR in Jan (previous two years I did Pol Base, but unsure now that TR got rid of VO2 workouts in that plan).
Unlike mountainrunner and myself, your last 4 weeks have been in the right direction!
I had Fletcher-1 in my plan tonight and I went to get ready for that. Then I remembered I was getting a new helmet and sunglasses getting delivered to a local shop for pic up. So I headed there first. That meant light would run out but I had to try out the new glasses I just did one of my usual training routes but what was unusual (for me at least) everything felt incredibly smooth (was it the new lid or just it was incredibly calm
)