Today could have been a bit of a dull ride. But thanks to my inadvertently joining some Garmin training plan a few weeks ago (and not really following it) I got a prompt before the ride to do a workout. I figured why not? My route was expected to be largely uninterrupted by traffic lights or junctions, so it seemed as good a time as any to do an outdoor workout.
Being that this was outdoors, there would be no ERG mode. Also the warm up wasn’t like I was expecting. Nothing like Zwift’s constantly ascending ramp up to the first interval. If I had read the notes a little better, or spent more time preparing, I might have known what to expect. But as it was, I perhaps should have waited until I was out on the main roads before triggering the start of the workout. Still, lesson learned.
The route I had planned took me ~30km, so I was expecting to be out for at least an hour. Somewhat surprisingly, given the stop / start nature of some parts of this ride (junctions, and early / late ride traffic lights), I managed to average 29.3kph. This is more surprising given that I didn’t really feel like I was working too hard on this one. The one minute efforts were intensive, but there was plenty of recovery between, and at very low wattages, too. Surprised I carried a decent speed honestly.
With a target to work towards, I found this ride went by really quickly. Far more so than if I’d just been meandering about left to my own devices. I managed to do a bit of exploring, too, coming down a road I’ve passed many times but never known what lies beyond. Well, it turns out, St Michaels on Wyre. Not a particularly interesting thing to note, but there you go. Sometimes I’m not a particularly interesting guy. Sometimes.
It’s been an absolute blessing to get this late Summer sun. And technically yes, it is still Summer until 22nd September (I just Googled it to make sure).
The heatwave is due to last the remainder of this week, and the 10 day forecast has us down as seeing this through till Sunday. Then rain from Monday. Absolute result if that holds out. I’ll be hoping to get out at least 2 more times mid-week, ideally tomorrow and Thursday, with Friday as a rest day.
My current plan is to do this same circuit again tomorrow night, but in reverse. I’m not sure if I will have a workout to follow or not. Often I just ignore the Garmin workouts, especially if they don’t look interesting. I might try and find a workout that does look interesting to slap on the device and ride that one instead.
But aside from all that, a good start to week so far.
