Each week I try to review and reflect on my previous week on the bike. This allows me to see how my fitness and ability is progressing on a wider timescale than day to day. For previous weekly reviews please click here.
It’s strange seeing it put on the calendar like the above. It doesn’t feel like I did six days in a row, but yesterday, in the legs on the way home I guess it did. I was tired, but more so physically than mentally. I could quite happily go for another ride today, and I yet might. It’s still early.
Overall then a very enjoyable week’s riding.
The week’s rides were as follows:
- Tuesday – Blowing Wild (Outdoors)
- Wednesday – Two Bridges, Two Lots of Four Mini Efforts (Indoors / Zwift)
- Thursday – Golly Jeepers I Love My Bike (Outdoors)
- Friday – Too Early Dammit (Outdoors)
- Saturday – Hill Repeats (But Not Too Many) (Outdoors)
- Sunday – Six In A Row, And Up We Go (Outdoors)
The big thing this week has been about the mental health aspect of cycling. Specifically having a way to release and unwind, not going to say ‘relax’, from the stresses of the contractor-between-contracts interview cycle.
Fortunately I think that may very well be at a conclusion, but I can’t say for certain until all the paperwork is signed.
Anyway, being able to down tools, kit up and get the heck out of the house is massively welcomed, and I don’t know how I might cope without that release mechanism. Certainly Thursday’s outdoor smash was exactly the thing I needed at the end of a stressful day.
So yes, very much grateful to my past self for having the motivation and desire to buy a bike, and to stick with the routine thus far in regular riding to the point where I can go out and do bouts of physical activity that my body craves.
Sorry, I think I may be rambling somewhat at this point.
A new thing I tried this week was outdoor hill repeats. I’ve said I’ll do that in the past, but have never quite found a good spot to get stuck in. Well, Saturday’s ride had that in the mix, though perhaps the time of day wasn’t ideal as the road was a little busy with fast moving traffic to truly get into it.
The better approach, I think, would be to drive out to somewhere like Jeffrey Hill and then do the repeats from there. My previous issue with doing a workout like this is that first you have to cycle there, and then once there, the thought of doing a hard climb more than once is properly draining on the old mental faculties.
Anyway, always good to try something new.
Saturday’s hill repeats did inspire me to do a little more of an intensive climb on Sunday. But I got soaked during that effort, and that’s never fun.
One thing I noticed on Sunday’s ride was that my heart rate monitor decided to badly under report my heart rate during the two climbing efforts.
For whatever reason it decided to drop down to about 80bpm during the first climb, and I think 134 was what I saw during the second.
80bpm is about my resting heart rate… so year, no wonder the VO2 max chart below is showing an uptick. I have no idea how to delete a specific thing from a workout. So deleting the heart rate data from the ride isn’t something I can do, and the stats are therefore totally screwed.
It does make me grateful that I don’t base my efforts solely off heart rate though. I mean I knew I was working hard, so obviously I’d listen to my body first and foremost, but if heart rate was all I had to go off that would have been a bit of a disaster.
It’s nice to have such a productive looking graph. As I say, all being well I should be signing off some paper work today with the aim to start a new role this time next week.
What that means is that I have a week free to myself without the stress / worry of finding work, but then I will be moving back into the routine of not having much time to ride. Also I’ll need to get to grips with a new work day schedule, so maybe next week will be a big dip. Who knows. I’d certainly not expect to be getting in 6 rides / 6+ hours on the bike.
But for this week, I’m not quite sure what to plan.
With 6 rides in a row, resting today is a good idea.
Then what to do for the rest of the week? Maybe not push myself too hard? I don’t know. I’m going to take this one as it comes.