For tonight’s ride I took on a free ride (not a workout free ride) on Fuego Flats. It’s been a long while since I’ve done a ride with no end goal, as such, so this was quite the novelty.
Setting off, I had no idea what I’d do with my time. I figured maybe I’d do an hour, and possibly go with a gentle pace.
As is often the case, however, once I’d got my legs spun up nicely, I went a bit daft.
I decided to push myself to see how long I could keep up a cadence of over 100rpm, whilst in a harder gear.
It turned out, not that long. And whilst it was a good initial workout, I kinda thrashed myself.
After this I decided to push as hard as I could (at a maintainable pace) up to 10km.
It’s been a while since I have pushed for a fast time to 10km, so the novelty factor was high.
I found a couple of riders who were at a much greater elapsed distance than I, and both of whom were pushing out way more than I might be able to at that distance. I managed to keep up with them until 10km, before the one rider who remained on the circuit dropped me like a stone.
I had planned to take a breather period after hitting 10km, but within 500m or so the start line of Fuego Flats reverse was upon me, and I decided to see if I could beat my previous PB.
Now, as it happens, my previous PB was apparently set last night.
And I figured that hey, last night I was doing Sweet Spot Training so I would have been alternating between 190w and 175w for the duration.
I assumed if I was pushing out 200w or so, I’d be able to smash my previous time.
I did managed to beat it. But only just.
I wrongfully assumed I would be well under my previous time, but evidently a few extra watts really don’t make that much difference.
Although that said, I did take 3 short breathers during this push.
Even so, happy to have beaten my previous time. And I’m fairly sure partly that time was based on a bit of drafting, of which on this run I had absolutely none.
It’s staggering to see the difference between myself and the top ten.
Fair play. I am sure I will never be that fit nor strong on the bike.
After this second push I was approaching 20km and decided to aim for the 30km target and give myself a little breather.
Foolishly I tried to hit the sprint… but just no.
I felt that weird little knot appearing again in my right calf. That was all the warning sign I needed to ease off a touch.
Some time between the 20-25km mark I found a small pack who were riding around 2.5-2.7w/kg. And I managed to ride with these people for a good few kilometers.
Only towards the end, as I approached my 30km goal, did the pack begin to break apart.
At 30km, that was me done.
I did some soft pedalling and then was happy to jump off, shower, and grab a well earned beer.
Well, you have to have some fun on a Friday.
540 calories done. Probably all put back on in two beers and a dairy milk.
Happy with the 202w over 20 minutes. Anything above 200w is a big win for me.
With 81km on the week, hitting the 100km riding goal should now be a given – assuming I get to ride tomorrow.
Tomorrow will very likely be a structured recovery ride from the FTP Builder series. Been a while since I’ve done one of them.
Something rewarding to see was that I almost beat out my previous PB on 25 minutes max effort. 203w vs 206w.
Feels like really solid progress.
I definitely feel a bit more comfortable about attempting the 2×15 FTP intervals workout at this stage. Though I fully expect that to be killer. That’s one for mid next week I think.
