Week of September 1

Monday was Labor Day, so on holiday I did something laborious – my longest ride yet on the PCs. It wasn’t the most fun I’ve had. My legs were tired and really started to protest the long ride. I told myself I’d do a metric century, and that’s exactly what I did, albeit very slow by my standards. It was pathetically slow, in fact, at 3 and a half hours, but nonetheless I did rack up my longest ride on the PCs both in terms of distance and time. Too bad I averaged a measly 176 W normalized.

After wearing myself out on Monday, Tuesday was a short spin of 35 minutes on the PCs. Wednesday I had no motivation so I didn’t even touch the bike. I’m pathetic. By Thursday I was getting back into the swing of things with a ride of just over 80 minutes and 203 W normalized. Woohoo! Friday was just an easy hour to save my legs for Saturday’s group ride.

I had made the decision to try to test on Saturday, but after a roughly 30 minute warmup before meeting up with the boys, I could tell my legs weren’t going to want to do a 20 minute TT. Instead I focused on simply riding hard in the group ride and letting the chips fall where they may. Being back on the regular cranks, I felt fantastic. Perceived effort was low. Whether it’s the PCs or the cooler, drier temperatures, I don’t know. All I do know is I set some yearly best mean maximal power values for the entire 2.5 to 3 hour time range. Given the reduction in volume and intensity lately and a perceived loss of aerobic power, Saturday was a pleasant surprise.

Sunday was a 2 hour endurance/tempo pace ride on the PCs. The legs didn’t feel as bad as I thought they would after Saturday’s ride (the legs hurt Saturday). The ride capped off a good week of riding. Longest PC ride and a solid Saturday ride with yearly bests. The jury is still out on the effectiveness of the PCs, and I need to build up that threshold power on the PCs to 20 minute intervals before really trying a 20 minute test on the race bike with regular cranks.

PC time this week – 8 hours 30 minutes
PC time to date – 43 hours 25 minutes