Tag: Bike

I did my endurance ride this morning on the CompuTrainer and started the Lake Placid real course video in Keene, so about a 41.5 mile ride. It was the first time that I did the last 12 miles where the three bears are. The CompuTrainer said that the grade was between 2% and 6%. I think most of the time it was between 2-3%. I actually think the beginning of the course is harder than the ending, but I haven’t riden the actual course yet so I don’t know. My only reference is the CompuTrainer real course video. The reason I think it is easier is because while it is a hill, you tend to stay in the same gearing and spin. The hills or hill really is just very long and not extremely steep. I did ride the entire time in the big chainring, I will be curious to see if that is possible on the real course.

Weight: 167

Yup, that’s right, vacations are bad. It doesn’t take much to lose any gains in fitness and vacations seem to accelerate those loses. Probably for two reasons, poor diet on vacation and less exercise. Sure, you will get physical activity in walking around Disney and you might even get out for a run, but most likely you will not put in the hours that you would have training if you were not on vacation. But hey, that is what vacations are for, being lazy.

I was on the CompuTrainer this morning for my Tempo ride. It was a much better ride than on Tuesday when I pretty much died on the thing. My heart rate was higher than it was two weeks ago when I did the same ride at pretty much the same power output. So, yeah, I’m still feeling the effects of vacation. It felt good to be able to sustain the effort for the entire workout today though and not have to back off. I can really feel it in my legs right now and since we had another 10 inches of snow drop last night I really felt it in my legs while snow blowing. After my rides now I’ve started taking a product from Hammer Nutrition called Recoverite. I will give it a try over the next month or two and see if I feel like it makes any difference in my recovery after my rides. During the rides I always use Perpetuem, another Hammer product, to keep hydrated and replace some of the calories being burned. I was going to use Gatorade but figured since I’m going to use Perpetuem on race day I might as well use it all through my training. Today I actually had two bottles of Perpetuem even though the ride was just over an hour, the second was after an hour of snow blowing. Maybe snow blowing will replace swimming as an event in Triathlon.

Weight: 168.8

I was back on the CompuTrainer this morning. This is the first Session since the Test Set that I did last thursday that recalibrated my wattage for the coming weeks. I knew I should have slacked off on that Test!!! On the Interval training day I use the coaching software for my workout. Using a text editor on the computer you simply enter in the load/resistance that you want the trainer to be at and the duration. The first ten minutes is usually building up to about 70% of your test wattage or what they refer to as CP30. Then for 5 minutes you go 30 seconds at 100% 30 seconds at 50%. Once that is done the main set starts and today it was 3 10 minute intervals of 105% with 5 minutes of rest in between at 50% followed by a cool down of 15 minutes at 50%.

I started off pretty well but I knew by the time I got to that third 10 minutes I was going to be hurting. Looking back at the workout now in the coaching software I can see that I was able to keep my cadence steady for the first and second 10 minute intervals. The heart rate would shoot up to around 165-169 and come back to around 140 in between. The last 10 minute interval was when I fell apart, at about 7 minutes into it. On the chart I can see my cadence dropping off and picking up and finally just drops and I had to grind out the last 2 minutes standing up. I can see I will be working much harder after that last Test upped the wattage. Hopefully this will all pay off this summer.

Weight: 169.5

Sunday is the long ride, this week the plan called for only an hour and a half ride. I think it was because of the Test Set on Thursday. The other reason is because the program has you build up over 4-5 weeks and then drop back and build again. Today I loaded up a course from my Garmin into the CompuTrainer. It is a ride that we had done a couple times at the end of the year and I was curious to see how it felt on the Trainer. My average speed was a little faster than when we were riding, but I think that is understandable since the last time we were riding the course it was between 30-40 degrees outside.

The ride goes from Boxford up to Newburyport and back down through West Newbury and Georgetown. While the 3D course is interesting to watch, it was more interesting to watch the course profile and see where I was along the course and remember what it was like being on the section of the ride outdoors. The hills certainly felt pretty realistic! In the time I had I did a little over 28 miles of the 40 mile ride. My average Watts were 195, HR 147, MPH 19, Cadence 87. Julie came and rode her bike on the Cyclops Fluid Trainer that I have following along the Lake Placid video.

Weight: 168.8