Saturday’s are usually a little pressed for time when it comes to bike riding. This is because I work from wake up till 2pm, then do some family stuff, usually till around 5 or 6pm, at which time the regular kiddy routine kicks in of food, bath, and bed. That takes me up to 8-9pm, and then it’s my turn to repeat the bath and bed cycle.
Today, however, I’d booked a restaurant meal with the wife and sprogs over in Southport – a good 45 minute drive away. And the reservation was for 15:45. An early tea. But that meant we’d need to be out of the house come 14:45, and that meant today I could either ride early, or risk it and see if I felt like getting in the bike when I got back home.
Writing this now I can tell you that waiting till I got home would have been a bad idea.
For today’s ride I was all too aware that the Garmin app has been saying I’m currently in an unproductive training period. Ideally I think I need rest. And I’m stressed. And I should be focusing on my diet. Well, clearly from above, I’m not doing great on that front. Still, I’m probably a bit underweight so I don’t sweat it.
Getting on the bike today I was prompted to do my next Garmin workout. That’s allegedly helping me work towards my first century ride. I honestly think I’d have no trouble completing a century at this point. But I haven’t yet ever done a century, and it seemed like a decent longer term goal when I was prompted a few weeks back by Garmin. And the upshot is, sometimes I get a workout prompt to follow when I boot up the bike computer.
Anyway, today’s workout was 8 Min. Tempo Intervals.
I find it fairly challenging to do these outdoor workouts, simply due to real world factors like huge headwinds, gusting side winds, road surface, traffic lights, little climbs to tackle, and descents to mess things up. But they do make things a bit more interesting than doing my own thing so why not?
It was a question for me today whether if I followed the structured workout, would Garmin still think my ride was unproductive. Spoiler alert: yes.
So clearly I don’t really understand about training productivity. I thought I did, but clearly not.
Anyway the ride today went fine enough. I have to wear my cycling jacket as it was a bit too cold. But by and large it was fine.
Im at 120km or so on the week. I’m guessing I shouldn’t ride tomorrow. But much like today, I have a fairly busy schedule tomorrow so whilst I plan to ride, I need to pick my time well and it won’t be more than 30km.
I’m fairly sure I’m forgetting to add something today, but my belly is so full of meat that at this point I just want to go and lay down in the bath. So whatever I’ve forgotten will unfortunately have to remain unsaid.
