Forward Progress
First, I have successfully (mostly) moved from Cambridgeport to Teele Square. Hurrah. After a stressful week of packing, the move itself consisted of the movers arriving at 8:25, the truck being loaded by 9:05, and the truck unloaded and paperwork done by 10:15. I'm acclimatizing, but there are still some boxes, mostly of books. I'm on Room Configuration #2, and I'm pondering a third. We shall see.
In spite of the moving, I managed to find time for five rides last week. Nothing terribly long, or hard-- I seemed to have trouble focusing, possibly due to moving stress. Tuesday I did a good sprint workout, about 1:30, including five jumps, five spinners, and five max effort sprints (I think). Wednesday was a bit over an hour, Thursday 1:45 of high endurance tempo, Saturday another sprint workout and Sunday some sub-threshold climbs of the Arlington water tower hill. I think it was 7:30 total for the week, not great, but there was at least some consistency.
This week started off slowly, with about 45 minutes of easy riding on Monday, and then Tuesday and Wednesday off (business trip to exciting New Jersey, and then busy at work). I made up for it by doing a good two hour ride on Thursday-- twenty minutes warmup, and then an hour of sub-threshold, about 172-180 bpm. Then about fifteen minutes of break and another ten minutes of sub-threshold, and then fifteen minutes of cool down. I felt pretty good, although the last ten minutes of the hour effort was hard. It was a good pace, a little over 20mph average for the warm up plus first effort, and a bit over 19mph average for the ride.
Friday I went on a relatively easy ride, for about 1:30. Saturday I rode out to Bedford to the NEBC group ride at 9:30, and then went on what was supposed to be a two-hour ride, but ended up closer to 2.5. Including the ride back, it was 4:00 all told, for just over 70 miles, with a chunk of intensity in the middle, but nothing too bad.
Today I was going to ride down to the training race at Wells Ave, but I woke up late, so I drove instead. After getting slightly lost on the way, I managed about ten minutes of warmup before the race began. We did 40 laps, for a total around 32 miles, in almost exactly 1:10, for a brisk 27.4 mph. Very smooth, too, not a barrage of attacks and lulls. Surprisingly, I didn't feel too worn out from yesterday, and felt pretty good about staying in the front half of the pack, and sometimes further up. I tried to get into position for a few of the sprints, but I wasn't quite close enough to really contest any of them. I didn't push myself up to the front early enough for the finish, but I managed to end up maybe around 20th-- another wave forward and I might have been in the top 10. And then there was warmdown, for a total about... 2:15, I think.
So, all in all, I was pleased with how the week went. 10:30 hours, including a long ride and some intensity. If I'd done a sprint workout on Tuesday, it would have been close to complete.
I clearly need to work on my max efforts, because I just didn't have enough to really make the sprints or attacks work today, but it's a start. More sprints, and more threshold or above threshold work in the future, I think. Plus more racing in general. =)
A few more 10+ hour weeks, and I'll be in pretty good shape again. Just in time for 'cross season... =)
In spite of the moving, I managed to find time for five rides last week. Nothing terribly long, or hard-- I seemed to have trouble focusing, possibly due to moving stress. Tuesday I did a good sprint workout, about 1:30, including five jumps, five spinners, and five max effort sprints (I think). Wednesday was a bit over an hour, Thursday 1:45 of high endurance tempo, Saturday another sprint workout and Sunday some sub-threshold climbs of the Arlington water tower hill. I think it was 7:30 total for the week, not great, but there was at least some consistency.
This week started off slowly, with about 45 minutes of easy riding on Monday, and then Tuesday and Wednesday off (business trip to exciting New Jersey, and then busy at work). I made up for it by doing a good two hour ride on Thursday-- twenty minutes warmup, and then an hour of sub-threshold, about 172-180 bpm. Then about fifteen minutes of break and another ten minutes of sub-threshold, and then fifteen minutes of cool down. I felt pretty good, although the last ten minutes of the hour effort was hard. It was a good pace, a little over 20mph average for the warm up plus first effort, and a bit over 19mph average for the ride.
Friday I went on a relatively easy ride, for about 1:30. Saturday I rode out to Bedford to the NEBC group ride at 9:30, and then went on what was supposed to be a two-hour ride, but ended up closer to 2.5. Including the ride back, it was 4:00 all told, for just over 70 miles, with a chunk of intensity in the middle, but nothing too bad.
Today I was going to ride down to the training race at Wells Ave, but I woke up late, so I drove instead. After getting slightly lost on the way, I managed about ten minutes of warmup before the race began. We did 40 laps, for a total around 32 miles, in almost exactly 1:10, for a brisk 27.4 mph. Very smooth, too, not a barrage of attacks and lulls. Surprisingly, I didn't feel too worn out from yesterday, and felt pretty good about staying in the front half of the pack, and sometimes further up. I tried to get into position for a few of the sprints, but I wasn't quite close enough to really contest any of them. I didn't push myself up to the front early enough for the finish, but I managed to end up maybe around 20th-- another wave forward and I might have been in the top 10. And then there was warmdown, for a total about... 2:15, I think.
So, all in all, I was pleased with how the week went. 10:30 hours, including a long ride and some intensity. If I'd done a sprint workout on Tuesday, it would have been close to complete.
I clearly need to work on my max efforts, because I just didn't have enough to really make the sprints or attacks work today, but it's a start. More sprints, and more threshold or above threshold work in the future, I think. Plus more racing in general. =)
A few more 10+ hour weeks, and I'll be in pretty good shape again. Just in time for 'cross season... =)