Cycling week 23 in review

Last week was a recovery week. And had decided to lower my goals for the rest of the year. A TSS of 550 for the first week, 600 of the 2nd and 650 for the last week. This week did 565 so I made my target, which was a good feeling.

As usual in the week after the recovery week I started with a fitness test on Monday. Being a little concerned about a pain in my right knee, which started last week after the run, I warmed up for the fitness. I felt it still but while doing the 20 min effort it fortunately disappeared. Where outside it was in the 90's, the basements was relatively cool with 64F. I also installed an extra fan to keep cool during the test.

The test itself I wanted to avoid starting to hard and that I would get my heart rate up too high, which would cause me the ease up during the effort. So I aimed for 275 watts first, but quickly felt I could do more.

This time I tried to keep the cadence at around 90 rpm. I ended up with an average wattage of 286 watts which results in an FTP of 272 watts an improvement of 5 since the last time.

Tuesday was the NCC Westhampton hill climb. The weather forecast for that was a chance of rain and thunderstorms in the late afternoon. The forecast was also hot (90f+) and humid. Based on that I decided to race early in the morning. I mapped out a 44mile route to and from the race. I left the house at 6:30am and was back at 9am.

The hillclimb was interesting as it had a relatively long descend just passed the halfway point; a great to get some recovery. My time was 25:17 with an average 13.9 mph over 5.8mi with a nominal power of 262 watts.

In the end it was all for naught. The results did not count for the overall standings as most riders were not able to safely race in the late afternoon as the thunderstorms hit hard. Here the NCC post about the cancelation.

Wednesday morning did a run but my legs were pretty tired and cut the run short. Ran 3.5 in with in a 11:35 min/miles. Did not want to have that knee problem return.

Thursday was the NCC A/B Hilltown ride in Northampton. I wanted to do this ride as the route return thru Conway back to Noho. The ride started at 5:30pm in Northampton. It goes to Williamsburg and then a long climb to South Ashfield. Followed by a descend on 116 to Conway and then back to Northampton.

I had calculated I needed an hour to ride the route from Conway to Pulanski park in Northampton. But I lost track of time and left 5 mins late and before I knew I was chasing the clock to arrive in time. In the had plenty of time but did burn a match or 2. Was great to see some riders like Jonathan and Charlie who I only rode with virtually on the NCC Zwift rides.

The pace from Northampton to Williamsburg was conversational and I chatted about Iceland with Jonathan we had woth ridden there. After Williamsburg the road kicked up towards Ashfield. We went from ridden two abreat to single file. And soon we created a paceline. I was able to stay with the lead group for 2 pulls, but after my last pull about halfway to Ashfield the tempo went up even more and with 5 other riders I lost contact with the lead group. We then worked together and created our own little paceline.

After regrouping in South Ashfield we pacelined to Conway. The tempo was super fast. We average almost 30mph and I got a 5th place on the Strave segment. Again I did two pulls, after the 2nd one I had a hard time getting back in the slipstream of the last rider, with all my might I was able to get back in the bubble and then all was good. In Conway I left the group to go home and they continued on to Northampton. Here the ride report from Charlie.

Sunday we were moving from our appartment in Lexington to a new appartment in Arlington. Which meant I needed to get my riding in on Saturday. Saturday morning the forecast promised rain, which caused me to move the ride to the afternoon. In the morning I worked on drywalling the garage.

For the afternoon I had mapped out a ride towards Charlement. A 40 mile ride with 2 major climbs Labelle and East Hawley rd. This was my first time on East Hawley and also the first going over that ridge on ashphalt. Fun facts a became local legend on Orcutt hill rd and set my PR. Overall was still tired from the week but was a good endurance effort.

Here the week on VeloViewer.