America's #1 Balance Bike Destination

America's #1 Balance Bike Destination
America's #1 Balance Bike Destination

Monday, April 13, 2009

DeJaVu

It will appear that I have an OCD relative to average speed and time, but this is wacky.. On Feb 14th I did my favorite hilly 40 mile loop. I always hit the lap timer at the mid way point- which is at the top of a hill. On that cold day in February, I hit the mid way point at 1:04:55 and completed the ride in 2:08:30-ish. Here's the Polar chart from Feb 14th.
Yesterday I needed a lot of motivation to suit up and throw a leg over the bike, and so what better way to fool yourself into going out and thrashing yourself for two hours, than to go for a new personal best on a known route? It's been two months since the last test, and I'm SURE to do way better than in February, you would think. Long story short, I matched my last time to within 5 seconds- both at the half way time check and at the end. If you said you'd give me $1000 to do this, I'd fail, but somehow yesterday's ride was the identical twin of the ride on 2/14. The watts we pretty much the same too- a little less than before, but I can attribute this to losing some body mass over the past few weeks. So why isn't my speed UP! I can't explain it other than maybe standing in the freezing rain for 8 hours on Saturday did a number on my legs.. (no riding at all for me Saturday) and that for the past month+, I have barely cracked 100 miles per week. Volume is way down as compared to the death marches I did every weekend in January and February. Intensity is up, but volume is down. The wind was definitely a factor- it seemed to be gusting to 25 mph and constantly shifting. At any rate, this was the good solid workout that I was after- more TSS than if I went up to Wells anyway! I wonder how that went..

5 comments:

solobreak said...

Are you working in Boston this week? There is a free TT in Dover on Wednesday night:

http://markdionne.com/tt.html

He keeps track of who does it cannibal. I might go.

IMA said...

I'll be in Boston tomorrow, not Wednesday. Sounds like a lot of fun. Your name is not in any of the results. You've never tried it?

solobreak said...

It is there, July 2008. Thom passed me... but at least I beat Colin.

It's not the quietest roads but it's ok.

IMA said...

Looking back on the Peaks chart from Sunday, I see that my best 20 minute average speed was only around 22 mph. That's on a course which is basically never flat. I'd probably populate the lower 50% of the results in Dover, at least the first few times.

solobreak said...

Dover will not be that fast in April. Especially with tights and long sleeves, but I'm still thinking about going.