Just seems easier to run right now:
Hopefully I can get the bike out this weekend.
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The really fast guys took it easy, so I survived to the end and crossed the town finish line in 4th.
Last 22 minutes:
went to the front a handful of times. Put the line at the point where my young buddy said “dig deep for another 2 minutes” and I breathless said “its 4” 
For the town line finale I was seated and only squeezed out a 400W surge for the last 30-sec into a headwind, which started near the end of the official sprint:
Leaving the house and first 45 minutes my allergies weren’t doing me any favors, and breathing didn’t feel good. Normalized power for the longer B+ loop was .88 IF, and last 22 minutes was .95 IF so I consider that a win.
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It was the club 10 miles TT tonight. My first lap was a bit too cautions but it set me up nicely for a negative split and season power PB’s. Lol, and 10mins faster than last week 
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ours is coming up soon, and I haven’t been doing any real threshold work yet 
Nice work on the season power PBs!
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WfH today, so rather than doing the endurance ride on my commute I did it at lunchtime. Down the shared footway to Yaxley (to let me stay in Z1); down the exposed Holme Road (thankfully it was pretty still today); out west to the old A1 and south to the first Sawtry roundabout (to give me enough time to finish before the London Road shared footway); back up the old A1 to the Stilton OB; a slight transgression over the new A1(M) Stilton roundabout; and mostly back up the shared footway to home to stay in Z1 (however when it ended on my side of the road rather than waiting to cross to the other side I made the short dash to home, hopefully without going out of zone to much).
GC thinks I was about 75% compliant.
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Out to the Elton Furze meet for the group ride expecting no one to show up but one of my mates appeared (he hadn’t said he could make it but his young kids and wife were sound so he made it out 
). We then had a fairly relaxed ride until Aldwinkle where we turned and went directly into the head wind. After a few minutes of that, he asked if he could draft. My hand was on the edge of numbness due to lack of circulation so I was glad to oblige and get the blood flowing 
We met my uber strong mate at the cafe and he was on openers for a race tomorrow so there was some structure in ride after the cafe He’s on good form I hit some power PBs but I think the Garmin was a bit too optimistic. Garmin Connect, Strava and RWGPS all read the file right, seasonal power bests for up to 1 min 40sec and equal to my 2015pb for the 42s up the 3.6% Back Lane in Elton at over 6w/kg in his draft into the headwind
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That belongs on the show me some big power numbers thread!
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A recovery ride from me but first I stopped of at the UK road bike TT that was being held on a course near to me.
The 2nd Pass is a bit samie:
The recovery
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Down the cycle path to Yaxley to let the rush hour traffic clear then I started my warm up for a 3x15 SS session with 6 min recoveries, down Holme Road and on the Old A1 with a few rbt turns to stay close to home. I think I played it too safe in a strong wind rather than focusing on getting the power out, and the first two intervals in particular were more like tempo. The 3rd interval is a little longer than 15minutes, but it finished at the bottom of a local hill sprint so I carried on.
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cleaned the roof, cleaned up after the gardeners, cleaned up the pool area, wash windows, swim, bike, swim, water plants, cracked open a beer.
… and the Bob Marley rock makes its first appearance of the season!
theme song:
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Today I took the train towards the city to see if I could cycle my old commutes quicker now than my best efforts 13 years ago. I went by moving time, because I figured this was a mock-up fitness test, not a roadcraft test or luck-with-traffic test. I wore a backpack & took the same routes.
Southbound first: Kedron to Garden City. 22.3km, 2011 moving time was 52’52". Today was 52’03".
Northbound, 2011 moving time was 46’10". Today was 46’37.
Prevailing wind is from the south, & that’s pretty normal for this area.
My excuses are being less acclimatised to the heat now, a 5’ break today between “commutes” instead of 9 to 10 hours of non-strenuous work, & today’s desynchronisation of traffic lights (for a cyclist) in both directions was pretty woeful.
Seemed to lose time on the rises but picked it back up on the descents & flats. Probably more conservative on rises now, also likely that power & weight have shifted relative to CdA. Naturally, power was a bit all over the place. I was chasing lights, chasing the car in front when in the fast lane, jumping kerbs to avoid intersections etc. 
Taking all that into consideration I’m calling it a narrow victory. Was a fun test, when it was not infuriating.
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Definitely a victory for cycle commuting over other modes, showing how consistent it is and the small fluctuation is probably just the lights. Almost the same 13 years later is a win for you too 
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PCC’s Smith Cup TT tonight, I managed 3rd from a small field but a long way as expected to the winner 
but 1min 22secs faster than my previous pb with the same bike and wheels in 2017 pre the C’s is something I’ll take. 42.48 for the 16.8 miles (with 3 x up the 7.6% Ufford Hill) and it was quite windy again, the met says it was 16mph with gusts of 19mph at 6pm and it felt like it got stronger
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Congrats! Nice gain.
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Plan was to do just openers for my first race this year, but I did a bit more 
after my rest week. Legs felt surprisingly good… set 30 sec season best. Hoping for no rain tomorrow and a few degrees warmer then today 13C is just so anoying because on the uphils it is short sleeve weather but on the downs it gets cold especially if the sun is not out and the course won’t allow to put clothes of and on it’s under 2 hours and on the whole time.
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The usual Saturday group ride for me today, with the usual stops and one p’ture stop which was far longer than it should have been. We hit a potholed section of road and one of my mates lost the battle with it. Lol, he managed to somehow forget to stick the stem through the rim, then he found the stem was too short for his rim on his second change and it was only third time lucky. Whilst that was going on another group also hit the series of potholes and something flew off one of their bikes. Walking back to retrieve it one of the riders realised, it was his Wahoo. My mates helped him look for it for quite while, no succes. Lol, one of our mates was meeting us at the cafe and we never noticed his text. Fortunately we got there just as he was finishing his coffee, a few minutes later and he would have been gone.
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You’ve just made me realize another reason to own a Varia. If your head unit flies off the bike into thick weeds, you can make the Varia go off so the head unit beeps and you can find it.
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So had my first race today, my bottle somehow broke on the way there had to organize another one, because i was already a bit close for time I didn’t have time to do a real Warmup, but the start was a bit delayed because in the Long Licensed race there was a bad accident and they had to transport a guy of with the Helicopter as fas as I’m aware…
The course is 34km lap done 2 times, a climb of around 15 min after 4km then rollers short decent and then a bit of climbing but mostly below 5% and then decent and flat to the line. Lined up to far back and had to make a lot of efforts in the first 5 minutes to make up places and then close gaps as the false flat part of the climb started. Still managed to make a group and close up over the rollers to some other riders. Hit my best all time 20min power on the false flat and climb (325W and nearly 340 Normalized). Didn’t do as much work in the group as last year I would say the group didn’t work that well, to many people just hanging on and guys doing super long pulls…
Second climb I payed for the first lap effort and only managed 299W 3 Guys went clear but we made it back to them on the plateau. The group made it to the finish, I opened up way to early and honestly had not that much left for the sprint, lost 6-8 positions. Finished 84 worse then last year but there were also way more people taking part and was 30 seconds faster then last year. Overal pretty happy and was a lot of fun.
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