Cycling week 14 in review (mmxxii)
This was an active week. It started out with a fitness test on Monday. I used the Zwift Bigger loop and then the Epic KOM to do the test. The Epic KOM climb is long enough to get the 20 minute effort in. The test resulted in a FTP of 283, which was a little disappointing, considering I was at 288 a month ago. But better compared to last year this time, when my FTP was 274 watts, an improvement of 9 watts.
It was not a good preparation for the NCC hill climb TT the next day. Dusty and I met at 10am to do a 40 mile loop to the start in Leeds to race up a 6.6 mile segment in Chester. My plan had been to stay in Dusty's wheel for as long as I could, but I quickly had to let him go in order to not completely blow up. In the end not my best time 30:32 vs my pr of 28:21 from a year ago. My legs felt tired and could not get any power out. Only 254 watts compared to the 262 watts of the pr. Afterwards Dusty and I rode back to Conway for lunch. Along the way we saw a giant white elephant along Sugar rd.
Since the weather was not promising for Wednesday we met after lunch for another 30 miles to get some distance in. We took Nash hill and then rode along Goat path toward West rd and then via Bellus and Pine hill back to Conway.
Wednesday was wet and I just did a quick 35 min spin on the trainer to loosen up the legs from the previous day efforts.
Thursday the weather was still wettish, so I did a 30 minute row intervals. After a 15 minute warmup, did 5 x 1 minute efforts followed by an ez minute, with a 5 minute cooldown at the end. This was the first time I was able to get my heartrate above 140 on the rower.
I followed the row session up with another ez spin on the trainer. Since Paula and I had been playing some chess the last few weeks, I played a chess game against the computer while on the trainer. To make it the ultimate multi-tasking effort Neil called me and I had to use some co-processors to get it all going :-)
Friday morning went for a short run along Academy rd. It had finally stopped raining.
On Friday, Pamela, Dusty and Paul went for a 28 mile as Saturday looked like another wash. The tempo was conversational, except for the occasional steep incline and we were back exactly 2 hours later. I even had some energy left for more chores around the house.
Saturday took a break, but Sunday was a double effort day. In the morning Mac and I went for a 6 mile trail run through the woods on Catlin hill and Pine hill. Mac had brought his dog and he loved running with us. He did have to cool off by jumping in a puddle.
John, Jason and Sean had gone for a ride to Vermont in the morning and I was going to see if I could connect with them on the way back. I ended up with a 52 mile ride, with sections along the Green river. In the end never found them. When I entered Vermont lost cell phone reception and could no longer coordinate. In the end John and I finished about 10 minutes apart. Different routes though.
This week on Veloviewer