The gloriously sunny Easter bank holiday is over, Jesus has done his thing, and the rest of us are back at work. But before starting work for the day, I had just enough time to drop in a cheeky 15km ride around Zwift’s London map.
I opted for the London Classique, a 5km jaunt with a small climbing section (about 25m per lap) and a sprint (200m). Perfect to get back on the saddle after a rest day.
Somewhat unexpectedly, my legs felt stiffer this morning than they did yesterday morning. On Sunday I completed my longest ever ride, a 50km pootle on Watopia’s new Out And Back Again route. My logic was as follows:
If I ride on Sunday and I do my legs in, then I get all of Bank Holiday Monday (erm… Easter Monday) to recover. The flaw in this logic is that being a bank holiday, I’d more than likely be outdoors with the kids, so my legs would need to be in good working order. Anyway, they were, things were fine. Easy to see how bugs creep into my software though, with such crappy logic.
The aim for this morning’s ride was simply to cover 15km. I didn’t have a better plan than this, and I didn’t have enough time to do the full Jon’s Mix workout that I’ve got in mind.
As usual, I attempted to ride 10km in 20 minutes or under. Happy to say I achieved this.
I also tried my best on the sprints.
With ~15km, I knew I could get 3 laps of the Classique in, with the first sprint not counting as it comes so early that I’m not yet warmed up. Disregarding that, 3 sprints would be counted.
The final scores for the day are as follows:
- 15.03 (first lap)
- 15.70 (second lap)
- 15.82 (third lap)
I would honestly hope my second lap would be faster than my first. To me, that shows I’ve warmed up, and still have something better to give. Alas, that was not to be today. Even so, I did do a new personal best, so can’t complain too much.
I’m hoping to get another ride in a little later this evening when the kids are asleep. This should be another 15km, but no guarantees on that at the moment.
Happy to have either put out, or equaled my best ever 5 seconds and 20 minutes wattage figures. It’s progress, though I’m not sure how much weight I should put on this.
It’s a funny feeling really. I feel like I put as much into that ride as I did the 50km ride. Both felt taxing, and according to the calories burned, both were on a similar level of exertion. I’ve discovered there’s really not much difference between 20km and 50km in terms of keeping my legs moving. I definitely prefer longer distance to sprinting
Hoping to get back on the bike shortly. If so, the ride report will likely go up some time tomorrow.