Two Wheel Blogs

The local radio station is playing Tubular Bells all day today. Not the song, the entire album by Mike Oldfield. You think Mike planned it this way?

I figured I'd get into the holiday spirit with my own tribute to Hell - a nice and painful workout full of suffering. No doubt that meant doing some hills, a lot of them.

There are seven hills near here, any of which is a good test for legs and lungs. I designed a route to take me up each of them with minimal time and distance in between. That would maximize climbing per unit time.

I figured I would be able to do one circuit of the seven hills (seven deadly sins, get it?) in about an hour. That's because the total distance to do the circuit was right at 25km and I figured an extremely hilly hour of riding should take some serious time off my average speed so I estimated I might see somewhere around 25kph.

Checking the math here... 25km at about 25kph means an hour of pain and suffering. Was that enough pain to offer up? Sure, it would be painful but would it be painful enough? Today is 06-06-06 after all. Check, gotta do it twice.

So there it was a two hour ride with 14 significant humps. That oughta peg the pain-o-meter.

Today had trainer workout written all over it. I woke up this morning to cold and damp with overcast skies. The weather forecast predicted things might be better later in the afternoon but I didn't have that option. A social function in the early afternoon followed by late afternoon visiting family meant if I was planning to ride my bicycle today it would be in the morning.

After a couple of cups of coffee and some breakfast things still weren't looking good outside. If anything they'd gotten even a bit worse. So much for hammering myself into the ground out on the road in anticipation of taking tomorrow off. If I was going to work out today it would have to be on the trainer. I figured a 40k total workout with an hour or so of threshold effort ought to do it.

Workouts like this are boring but effective. They don't hurt all that much, not until the pressure points start barking and not until fatigue starts to set in. With TSS = 120 (intensity factor 0.961) I'll be good to go tomorrow even though I'm not planning a ride at all. I should be feeling fairly good for whatever I decide to do on Tuesday.

Finally, a day I could get out and ride. Yes, outdoors. And I only got rained on a little bit.

Actually getting outdoors for a bike ride felt like a whole new experience. Seems like it's been forever. That feeling of being out of school, you know the one, the last day, in the afternoon, just when the bell rings and you don't have to come back for three whole months... That feeling. Yeah, that one.

I didn't bring my A legs to the party though. If I'd had my A legs today I'd have been riding like there was no tomorrow. As it was, it was, well, just grand.

And yes, I got rained on. Just a little bit. Every day around here has some rain in it lately. You know that smell, kind of dusty, kind of muddy that you only get for a few seconds at the start of a shower? The first few drops bring it on and all too soon it's gone. Nope, you don't get that when you're riding your bicycle on the trainer.

Some respectable training there in that chart. For me anyway.

Considering where I've been lately - man I really gotta catch up this blog on my injured back - I'm really pleased to see evidence of the old fitness. No, I'm not making as many watts on my bike as I was a couple of months ago; but I'm making more than I thought I would. And my pedaling is getting smooth again. Ah that old muscle memory thing.

It looks like the rest of the world is starting to wake up to the benefits of using a power meter on a bicycle. A few days ago this article posted on the LA Times.

First off I have to rant just a little. He calls it a wattage meter. Why not a BTU meter or a horsepower meter? It's a power meter. OK, if this is what it takes to get power meters into the mainstream then call 'em whatever you want.

It was good to see this technology some of us have been using for years take a giant step forward. It's the LA Times! And they wrote about power meters and how you can use them on your bicycle to improve fitness. That's cool. Like I said, I've been a bicycle power meter user for almost three years, which happens to be as long as I've been riding a bike in this chapter of my life. Tonight was no exception. Want to know the kind of cool stuff you can gain insight to if you use a power meter on your bike?

Tonight's workout on the trainer convinces me there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I will get used to training indoors again, and eventually my power will return.

This was not a real test by any means. The entire workout only lasted about 45 minutes. In my current condition that's enough to qualify as a "middle" kind of day - not really a good, hard workout, yet not light enough to be considered recovery.

In TSS terms this one scored about 56 points, which is a bit below my current CTL. It's also low enough to qualify as active recovery for me, regardless of the intensity of my ride. The good news is there were several minutes in the middle of the workout where I actually felt OK, like I belonged on top of the bike and turning the cranks was natural. It's the first I've felt that on the trainer since moving indoors, and it was a welcome feeling. Knowing that zone is still there and that I can get into it in the coming months is what will get me through the winter training season.