Back from a week away celebrating both a birthday (not mine) and a wedding anniversary (mine), let me tell you, it was hard as heck getting back on the bike tonight.
On the plus side, I did get back on the bike.
Even if only for ~20 minutes.
During that 20 minutes I put in the best effort I could. Truthfully I should have ridden earlier in the day. However, I lost my habit / routine whilst away.
For only the second time ever, whilst on holiday I did hit the gym. Twice.
I found it difficult to get a proper Zwift-esque workout on the Spanish equipment. But I tried. On both occasions I put in an hours effort, and I think that went some way to alleviating the total wreck I put my body through otherwise.
In short, my plan was to ride 4x whilst away.
However, whilst celebrating the wedding anniversary evening, I indulged in one too many cocktails (there were ~20 or so to try, and I managed over 10 of them – not all in that evening :)), along with some wine. And that made me sick as all hell the next day, and then I just lost my will to get back on the bike after that.
Oh well, first holiday in 3 years. I can’t be too hard on myself.
For this ride I wanted to right a few wrongs.
I went for a solid 20 minute effort. Riding the Classique, I wasn’t in for much climbing, but could indulge in a couple of sprints.
I was really pleased with the first proper sprint effort. A solid 14 seconds. I’m not quite sure how this compares to previous, and don’t have the time to go check, but it felt like a decent attempt.
With the sprint done, I went for the best time I could to hit 10km.
I think I managed a 16:53, maybe a second better, but the second 5km wasn’t as “good” as the first. Even so, I was happy with that time.
After this I throttled back somewhat, and decided to give it another go on the sprint again before calling it a day.
I was really happy with my second sprint. Yes, the laps are only ~5km, but after a good few days off the bike – and a lot of heavy eating – it did me the world of good to properly go for it.
One thing that made me laugh / grimmace:
When I sat down after the second sprint, the saddle came loose.
It arched up a little.
Man alive, how much weight have I put on?!?
Well, I weighed myself last night, apparently 0.6kg. Maybe it was loose all along 😉
The plan is to get back into it properly tomorrow.
Alas I am also back to work tomorrow which means up at 6am. Fortunately my body clock isn’t too far out of whack – kids will do that for you.
All being well I hope to hit a Zwift Academy workout after work tomorrow afternoon. That is the plan, at least.
Another thing I was fairly happy with on this ride was my cadence. I’m able to keep a higher cadence at a higher wattage as of late. This feels like good solid progress.
Hard to truly count this as keeping close to my FTP (195w… though not according to Zwift – long story) as I was out of the saddle on the short climb sections.
Anyway, good to be back on the bike. Routine re-establishment underway.
