At the end of yesterday’s ride I came away with some knee pain.
So you’d probably think I’d have taken it easier this morning.
And I guess in hindsight, that would have made a lot of sense.
But then, I’m a bit dense. As such I opted for a harder ride today. Riding with pace partner Jacques who averages 3.2w/kg.
However, the route was Watopia Waistband, which is pretty flat and therefore I figured it would be easier than it actually turned out to be.
One thing I think the pace partners really need is a longer warm up. I reckon there’d be a higher uptake of the harder effort pace partners if you were in charge of your warm up / pedal assist time. As it is, 10 seconds from fresh is a bit nutty. The alternative being that you warm up off the pace partner, then stop, fanny about changing rides, then resume… yeah, not surprising no one does that.
Anyway, I was fine when I set off today. I knew almost immediately this was going to be tougher than yesterday, but I’d also forgotten about the knee pain. Time is a great healer.
Thankfully the knee pain basically didn’t occur … until it did.
There was no mucking around today. The effort, for me, was very much in the high tempo / low threshold range (or green and yellow, for the people like me who only understand colours).
Yesterdays ride by comparison was largely endurance / blue. Considerably easier. Even on the easier ride, if you fall off the back of the pack it’s a challenge to get back on. The speed of the pack is ~40kph or so, but with this group it was higher still.
And yes, I did find myself drifting off the back more as the ride went on.
The take away from me on this one was it’s a very good representation of what it’s like to be with the second or third group on a larger ride / race (think Tour of Watopia or whatever), about 20-30km, or 30-45 minutes into the ride. It’s different because there’s no fast start, but at some point things do slide into this kind of speed / rhythm. So for that it’s great practice.
However for me, today, it was suddenly knackering. I wanted to keep on for 1.5 hours, but I just couldn’t. I’ll admit around the 45 minute mark I started looking for an excuse to finish up. I’ll just make it to 60 minutes, not the 90 I had planned. I’ll stay on till 50km, not to see how far past 50km I could make it. That sort of thing.
In the end though, my knee really started to aggrevate me and that was enough for me to call it a day. Yes, I could say I didn’t want to risk any injury, but the most awkward truth of it was I’d had enough. I wasn’t cooked, but I was probably not in the right shape (after a week off) to put in a prolonged effort like this.
I will return to this ride though. This was a solid and useful one that I feel was good value, efficient, and a variation on a shorter SST session. So definitely a winner.
