A bit of a different week training wise. After the weekend in Austin, I had no motivation to get out Monday and ride, so I didn’t. In hindsight I should have since an upper level low decided to park itself near Houston, bringing several days of wet conditions. I redeemed for my Monday rest day with my best ride yet on Powercranks on Tuesday. I have to wonder if my effort would have been as good had I not ridden with pal and teammate Alex. What was intended to be just an “easy” ride turned out to be more of a tempo effort. With Alex riding next to me I had to keep the pace up with his “easy” regular cranks. It was only a 25 mile ride, but my normalized power was 228 W for the ride, with a 20 minute segment at 250 W and hour at 241 W. It really felt like a breakthrough ride with the PCs.
Wednesday through Friday were another story. Between being held up late at work and the wet weather, I found no time to ride in the evening. I was going to join my teammates up in Chappell Hill Saturday for a hill ride, but I just was too tired to contemplate that trip. I slept in on Saturday and went out for what I wanted to be a long ride. One thing about my body, however, is that just a few days off sets me back quite a bit. Saturday on the PCs the perceived effort was sky high and my legs were gone. My heart felt like it wanted to jump out of my chest with even moderate effort. My high from the Tuesday ride was replaced with an absolute low – one of my worst rides of the year. 2 hours at a pathetic 171 W normalized. During and after the ride I was happy not to have made the trip out of town.
A bit of redemption came Sunday. The Saturday ride seemed to open the legs up some and I felt right back at home. I went out for 45 minutes before meeting up with the usual Sunday crowd. The pace was a nice tempo pace and I felt good. A couple of woman on the ride were losing a little ground, and since one just got back from a 2 week trip to Peru, I knew the frustration she must be feeling. I dropped back to draft them and just keep a moderate pace for them. It was only in the last 10 or so miles of a 3 hour ride that my legs started burning. My hip flexors were really aflame for the first time I can think of. The accumulated 60+ minutes in L3 and L4 took their toll, but considering this was my longest ride (distance and time) yet with PCs, I’m pleased. It was a nice endurance pace overall at 185 W normalized, almost comparable to a usual Sunday ride after a 3-5 hour hard Saturday ride.
PC time this week – 6 hours 20 minutes
PC time to date – 26 hours 20 minutes
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