I think that’s the first Z2 workout in my recovery week ticked off. I usually ride a fast 2up with a mate on a Wednesday but he could only make today (Monday). Monday’s are usually a rest day for me but he offered to make it a steady Z2 effort.
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5 Mile Jog
Fairfax County, VA, USA
Hot and humid! HR looks flat but it climbed throughout the run with a noticeable inflection upward around 3 1/2 - 4 miles. Drank 350 ml of water with electrolytes during the run, and another 650 ml immediately after. Working on the next 1 liter bottle. 
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A Z1/2 Recovery Session for me tonight down to the old Conington Airfield for what is normally a traffic free loop except tonight for some reason a 7m artic lorry decided to turn into it before I did and promptly got stuck.
Fortunately he stopped to try and figure out if he could do a turn in this junction and I got by.
He then appeared again and I went Z4 for a bit to a narrower and twistier bit of the road which goes over a narrow bridge. Good Luck to him getting over that!
On Average though its just about right.
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Went out on a test ride for the equipment for my Bikepacking trip on Saturday. And also check a bit of pace… Most of it went well just my handlebar was a bit narrow for the handlebar bag.
Decision to get a 36t chainring was good as fully loaded it helps with the steep ascends.
Replaced the handlebar with the old 44cm one, now space is good. On the short test ride I naturally got a punctures and my new tires delivery is delayed… Had to order continental terra adventure as they were basically the only decent 50mm tire that was available on short notice…
Now I hope the weather doesn’t get worse as I don’t want multiple thunderstorm and rain days in the Alps…
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Down to Conington Airfield again for some Z2 laps (Daemon)
The IF was supposed to be 0.66 but a few red lights saw it fall 0.63; the central 55 minutes is 0.66 though so I guess its ok.
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Last August I shamefully withdrew from an audax ride because of heat exhaustion on an unseasonably hot day, that really, I should not have attempted. Yesterday I redeemed myself.
Downs Murmuration 300, or as I called it: Downs Retribution: a route using mostly quiet country lanes & roads past farmlands, & with minimal highway action.
Weather forecast was dry, early fog, & 4°C-21°C, much more palatable for this cold weather weirdo 
than peaking in the low 30s. I stayed at the same airbnb as last time at Toowoomba & cycled the 13km to the start point to meet with the ride organiser & other randonneurs for a 7am start.
A couple of hiccups to start, but the ride otherwise started smoothly. Caught up to a randonneur on the 400km route when he stopped & we shared some chats until his turnaround point at 100km in, a locality called Bell, the first control for both of us.
I contemplated that I’d pushed a few too many watts whilst riding with him so I eased it up just a little as I headed on solo towards Jandowae, where I quit last time.
Me looking (& feeling) much better:
I reached the Jandowae control, bought some water, chatted with a staff member there who remembered me from last time, & I was a bit embarrassed, but then realised that having a heat-exhausted cyclist spending hours in their café just to recover, is not something they’d see every day. The two staff members said I was looking a lot better this time. I felt pumped to leave on my bike & not in the sag wagon, but reminded myself I was only halfway. And faced the cross-headwind for 50km on the south-southeast highway to the next control at Dalby. I decided there was no sense fighting it, it doesn’t get harder, you just go slower, & I allowed it to take longer.
Onward, heading east. This time a cross-tailwind for about 30km past more recently-harvested cotton fields. But it wasn’t much faster; the road had imperceptibly tipped upward at an average of 0.146%
Then with about 65km left on my randonneuring quest the sun set. I was hoping to be a bit closer to home by then but c’est la vie. The sun sleeves (ironically) went back on, as did the glove liners, just to take the edge off the cold that I was expecting. And it did cool off quite a bit. Especially around a lot of the creek crossings, where it feels like you’ve just walked into a fridge… brrr! But thankfully, having eased off earlier, I still had some energy left in the tank & could pick up the pace in situations where I needed a bit more body warmth. Felt relieved to see the lights of the town of Goombungee which signified 28km of randonneuring remaining, then got really excited when I could see the lights of Toowoomba. Then just over 13 hours after having started I arrived back at the park at Highfields. Thought to photography myself at the gate, but didn’t stop for that or to timestamp & sign my card (I figured I could remember the time & write it in later), I just wanted to get back to base. Felt so good to walk in the door, knowing I’d ticked that one off & put my earlier DNF behind me.
(
Blue for the audax route; red for the commute)
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So I am on my Bikepacking trip, currently sitting in a Cafe in Val Müstair as it is raining like crazy and I have no intention to cross a remote pass in that weather. In 3 hours it should be better so hopefully I can make it to Livigno today.
Day1
Took the train to Chur a bit later the planed. then it went up the road to Tschiertschen after that the gravel startet it’s a really nice route towards lanwies there was the first proper singletrack.
After that the climb towards the strelapass startet first part until the restaurant is mostly nice gravel. Took a short break there and got an expensive Cake…
Afterwards it got really steep so pushing was necessary, the path went to alpine singletrack which was mostly rideable until 1km from the top. From there it was nearly 300m of climbing on super rocky trail. Was super hard and couldn’t take much breaks as a storm was coming in. Made it over the top as the rain startet.
Decided to stay in Davos for the night as it would get late if I would try to get over the flüela pass and it looked like the weather could get worse.
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Day 2
Startet over the Flüelapass weather was good, and it didn’t have that much traffic early in the morning.
After the flüela it was Such to Scuol over Ftan where I visited my kids and ate lunch. That part was some of the most beautiful Gravel riding I ever did and Guards is a beautiful village..
From Scuol it went to S-charl which is a nice valley to the little village, first part is pretty steep road the it gets to more compacted dirt/gravel there was a bit of traffic but nothing bad.
From S-charl it went up on gravel to the pass da Costainas. The last part after the alpine Farm was singletrack but rideable on the gravel bike. Met some people on normal touring bikes they struggled a lot. After the pass it was down to val Müstair. Downhill was sometimes difficult as it was chunky and loose and on 20+ grades it gets hard to slow down again if you let the bike go…
Pretty stoked with the trip and after today the weather should be ok again.
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@Morzak you win! Amazing ride and pics!!
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4 x 10-12 @ SS
Anacostia Park, Washington, DC, USA
Kinda sorta made up the intervals based on the time / distance between turn around points. Started Sustained Power Build, but pulled the first workout (VO2) to yesterday. AT didn’t really know how to handle that I so I did the non-adapted workout - was a little harder than AT might have otherwise prescribed but I made it through.
I had planned to do an endurance ride this morning, but felt ok at the start so I did sweet spot. Didn’t think to check TR before starting, though. I looked mid-ride and turns out that AT adapted the next 15 workouts! It scheduled Ericcson +2 (6 x 8 @ high sweet spot) for tomorrow, which I probably could have done today, but I was a little cooked. Stuck with the 12-min intervals at low sweet spot and will let AT figure it out later. Will definitely do endurance tomorrow, and may go for a jog on Wednesday … will see.
Lots of dirt and debris in the river from recent rains upstream.
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Visiting relatives out in the Granite Belt area just south of Stanthorpe. Yesterday I took as a second recovery day, tomorrow I’m travelling back to the Big Smoke with a couple of stopoff locations, so I brought forward tomorrow’s sweetspot workout Lachens to today.
I remembered from another ride around here the hilly but long, uninterrupted, & decently-surfaced Eukey Rd which I thought should be suitable for the segmented 3×20’.
Aussie grass is generally brown & yellow. 
Upon finishing I had a short rest & Zone Twoed it home along the “bike trail”, which is really just a bunch of country roads that are not the highway. 'Tis a rather circuitous route, but it does remove one potential instigator of anxiety for many. Short section of dirt near the end:
Anticlockwise loop
Managed to keep power & cadence somewhat level despite terrain changes so naturally the speed was all over the place. I can’t remember ever spinning out my highest gear in a structured interval session, but I came close to it today, hitting 110rpm & 64.8kph in my 55:12 top gear on a -7.5% grade.
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Fletcher
Anacostia Park, Washington, DC, USA
More laps, each one at a slightly different Z2 power 65-75%. No pics but we had an awesome sunrise.
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Were you in a paceline, or just all out there doing training on the same loop? If it’s the former, well done keeping a consistent power in a group! Mine tends to be pretty rough when I have to follow a wheel.
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Riding solo. The Hains Point Hammerfest rides that I do at East Potomac Park (eg Hains Point) are a paceline and surge a lot. There are just enough rolling false flats to make it like a 15/15 or 30/30 VO2 workout. I have intentionally favored the solo rides at Anacostia Park to work on my power control and complete the prescribed workouts.
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6 Mile Jog
National Mall, Washington, DC, USA
Slow jog this morning, focusing on form, cadence, and building joint and connective tissue strength. TBD if I’ll do a super easy recovery ride tomorrow or sleep in a little.
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Life goals right here…this ride looks amazing.
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Last night the trains were messed up yet again and when I got home I decided to skip my VO2max workout and watch the TdF highlights instead. Tonight was originally planned to be an Endurance ride following the VO2max workout, but given I’d skipped it I fancied something a wee bit more and fired up Train Now which gave me a Sweetspot workout Monitor -1. As an aside I p’tured at the weekend and it didn’t seal with Peaty’s so I cleaned the tyre out and put Orange Seal in. It seemed fine (sealed 1st time without mess) but I kept it local and headed down to Conington. No real surprise the road was closed at the little walled bridge, last week 16.5m artic that got stuck on the airfield road would have damaged it getting out. There was just enough room for a bike to get through. I probably should have had a longer warm up though 
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My Thursday group ride never happened so I did my scheduled workout down at Conington Airfield, a bookended under over session ( Izaak Walton -2). They’ve put even more cones down and it was even tight for a bike at least the loop was nice and quiet. My LH power meter seemed to be all over the place in the blustery conditions or maybe I just wasn’t smooth enough
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