Tag: Active Recovery

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Swim on the bike?

The day started out nice. Biked down to the pond and the sun was rising up over the pond. Looked like it was going to be a beauty of a morning. Then about halfway across the pond it seemed awful dark and the sun was gone. By the time we reached the other side you could tell a storm was coming. Fortunately it was not a Thunderstorm, at least I didn’t hear any thunder or see any lightening. The wind picked up though and made for a long swim back. I wish I had wore different swimming attire this morning. I just wore a pair of jogging shorts to ride over in and swim and it proved to be a good swim workout because of the drag from the shorts. No rain during the swim, not that it matters when you are in the water.

Heading out for an easy ride on the bike the clouds were still looking ominous and by the time I reached the corner of Middleton and Main it was raining pretty good. Headed down to the end of Middleton Rd and by that time it was just raining. The rain wasn’t cold though so I felt ok riding. The worst part of riding in the rain is getting home and having to clean the bike up, that probably took almost as long as the ride!

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/91183711

Weight: 163.8

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Great sunrise today

Well, the plan was to swim at the pond and then go for an easy bike ride. Only part of the plan worked out. George never showed up to swim and there was no one else there until almost 5:45 and that was a little too late for me to get in a crossing and bike. Mark M. showed up on time at 6:00 and we did the Tour De Boxford pretty much riding all over town. It was a good recovery ride for almost an hour and a half. I think it is the perfect ride to let my legs recover after the long run and the hard bike the day before. In the past I would have pushed it again on a day like today and probably would have ended up getting injured or be so sore that I wouldn’t be able to workout effeciently tomorrow. It is a tough balance trying to figure out when to let my body recover and when to push it.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/89597991

Weight: 164

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Yes, it is still raining

Not much too report today. Did a 1 hour 15 minute ride on the CompuTrainer this morning. It was a recovery ride to recover from the hard ride on tuesday and long run yesterday. The goal was to keep my heart rate under 140 for the entire ride and keep the candence at 90. Really it was just about trying to spin some of the tired/soreness from my legs.

Weight: 164

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Recovery day

After the 12 mile run yesterday and the CompuTrainer ride the day before my legs were feeling a bit heavy and tired so I made today a recovery day. I tried to work on keeping my cadence up and also my Spinscan numbers to keep my pedal stroke more efficient. I did ride for 1 hour and 15 minutes, but kept my heart rate under 140 and averaged 128 for the ride. Cadence was 91 for the ride, right around where I want to be. At least that seems to be the cadence where I feel most efficient right now.

Weight: 165

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Spacely Sprockets and Cogswell Cogs

My bike came with an 11-28 cassette and it seemed fine to me, never really paid much attention to the numbers. I just figured bigger one is easier smaller one is harder, let’s ride!  Well, for sometime now I’ve noticed that when I would shift from the middle of the cassette up I would lose quite a bit of speed/power. At one point I even thought I was skipping over a gear and would take a look down to see what was going on. It is kind of a weird feeling when you shift from what seems like just a little too much effort in the legs to quickly spinning crazy fast and losing speed. I took a look at my old bike and noticed that I had a 12-25 cassette on that one and that bike always felt pretty good shifting through the gears.

I ordered up a 11-25 and put it on the bike last night before my morning ride. I can say that it made a big difference and the shifting is more smooth, my legs don’t spin out of control when I shift up from 19 to 21 or 21 to 23. Granted this won’t make me faster, but it should help keep my cadence more even when going through the gears.

In other gear news, I checked with Quarq yesterday on my order and the new crank with the power meter should be in next week. Looking forward to riding with power outside to keep my effort at a more steady pace. Many times I don’t realize I’m pushing as hard as I am until my heart rate goes way up and by then it is too late. That is something I really want to try to avoid on the long rides and at Ironman.

Today was another active recovery ride, so not much to report on there.

Weight: 166.6

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Active Recovery!

This week is an Active Recovery week for the bike performance improvement program. I’ve been kind of looking forward to it. So today was a 45 minute ride at no more than 60% of my CP30 or threshold power. So, yeah, it was pretty easy! My heart rate average was 120 for the ride. Looking forward to a similar ride on thursday morning. The idea behind the easy week is the testing that is to come on the weekend, need to have fresh legs for that.

Weight: 167