Training Log Archive: veinbuster

The smile cookie trek.
We forgot to get any this week so toured the local Tim’s to find they were all sold out.

Day 3 soloflex

Cruzbike TT Challenge week 20

Third time is the charm.

Light wind today, so I waited until temperature hit double digits to go out. Well...I loaded up at 8C hoping the sun would take it to double digits by the time I got on the bike. While waiting, I pumped the tires back to my original pressure of 90psi and cleaned and lubed the chain. I wanted to eliminate whatever might have made for a slow Monday.

I pushed the outbound pace into a light south wind, expecting to have an easier time on the return. As I road, the flags suggested a shift in the wind, still light though.

I made the turn with about 20 seconds in hand and pushed to keep my pace up on the north bound stretches, where I should have had a tail wind, but didn’t now. One big power burst to get by a tractor pulling a load of onions, but it got my pace up enough to get a bit of heart rate recovery before the longest turn into the light east wind. Less than half of the last interval was into the wind, so I was able to run a bit less power. Average power was down 3 watts from Monday, so if I get a light wind day next week, I should have a bit more to push for the last week.

This week’s ride should lock in my first overall, but I would still like to finish with a personal best.

38:07
Past times
38:27
39:05
39:20
40:05
below on Giro
41:46
42:02
42:32
43:04
43:30
43:43
44:01
44:20
44:40
45:00
45:20
45:50
46:50
47:55
48:16 (middle chainring)

C • Another great one! 4

Short to get to an early Covid test before London mom’s birthday. Still arrived 33rd in line

Day 2 soloflex and free weights

Waiting for the school buses to finish their runs before a redo of my TT for this week.

It was quite windy, but I thought I would take a shot at the TT route after school was in. The actual wind direction disagreed with the weather channel, but I started with a tailwind and pushed the effort a bit to get a bit of a time buffer knowing the return would be tough. If the wind shifted to straight north, I would have a good shot at a win.

No school buses, but 3 different tractors pulling a pair of trailers found their way in front of me. Honestly though, I’m not confident I could have maintained a 170 heart rate for the full return. It was taking 250 watts to barely hold the northbound target pace. But 15km, it was clear I couldn’t make a new personal best, so I eased off to save my legs for another day.

Garmin’s new route map with colour coded power was pretty interesting in its visual representation of the power profile and the jumps each time I turned north.

I need double digit temperatures and single digit wind outside of commute time to beat last week’s time.

I got home just as FN arrived, a bit early so took her, Mrs and Bella (FN’s dog) for a river walk before a distanced tea.

Cruzbike TT Challenge week 20

This might not be my official run.

I didn’t feel great about it as I dressed for 3C, mostly because I wasn’t sure how much of my energy would go to keeping warm. That would be fine in a normal TT because it would impact everyone, but I’m just competing against my own past weeks.

I had the pace I needed outbound in very light wind, but my power was running about 15 watts high. That didn’t seem logical to me. At around 15km I got a school bus stop. This was the first of my TTs school has been in. That slow stretch was too late in my run to really have a shot at making up the time. I finished out the TT anyway to see how the metrics shaped up.

Average heart rate: up 12 bpm
Average power: up 13 watts
Time: down 33 seconds

The doesn’t really add up to me

C • Power up, time down 2

Was prescribed a 60 minute spin the day before the TT, so cruised the river.

The west side path construction has been completed, so going on the lightly used section no longer requires riding through a commuter parking lot.

Path traffic is back to about pre Covid levels, presumably because school is back in session.