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.
I don’t think I’ve ever hit 7 hours total riding time in a single week before. Using Training Peaks I scrolled back to 2020 and couldn’t find a single week above 6 hours.
That was never my intention, however. Monday’s ride was an epic, but only because I got a little lost and added about 20km on to my route. Not complaining, but I can’t imagine any recurrence of that in the short term future. Sadly.
The rest of the week was pretty standard stuff really. I held steady with the on-road FTP test on Friday, and the rest was a little forgettable. Overall not a bad week though.
Here are this week’s rides:
- Monday – Longer Than Planned (Outdoors)
- Wednesday – Fat-eeeegue (Outdoors)
- Friday – The Old Mixed Bag (Outdoors)
- Saturday – Yeah, I Was Not Feeling That (Outdoors)
- Sunday – Unhappy Sunday Riders (Outdoors)
Monday’s ride was what this week was all about.
Due to the Queen’s funeral, we got an unexpected extra Bank Holiday. Not being much of a royalist / monarchist I decided a better use of my time would be to head out for a bike ride. My theory was that the roads would be quiet. And by and large, they were.
I’d planned to do ~50km that day, ending with a short but steep climb of Four Acre Lane / part of Jeffrey Hill.
All of that went fine enough, and when I’d done the climb I figured I’d take the lower roads down to Ribchester, climb the long and fairly gradual incline back to Longridge and then head home.
Somewhere along the way though, I missed my turn. Not following a route on the Garmin I was winging it, trying to remember the map I’d seen on Google pre-ride.
As such I ended up on this fairly long roller coaster section out to Stoneyhurst. As I’d already been cycling for about 1.5 hours at this point, and as some of the hills were fairly steep I ended up putting way more pressure on my knees than I’d anticipated. By the time I’d made it home my right knee was quite sore.
That’s why I decided to have a rest day Tuesday.
On Wednesday, feeling refreshed I went out on a slight variation of my usual mid-week dinner time route and tried to do a 20 minute effort. That one didn’t quite go to plan and I only managed 15 minutes. Still, not bad, but nothing to write home about.
Rain stopped play on Thursday, so it wasn’t until Friday before I was back out. The on-off-on-off-on flow seemed to make the week feel longer than usual.
I tried another 20 minute effort on Friday but could only equal my previous best. Again, not bad and a decent work out. It’s hard to see how I might improve on that figure outdoors at this point.
However, with the weather turning ever colder, and the nights becoming ever darker, I will be back on that turbo soon enough whether I want to be or not. I’m trying to eek out as much fresh air as I can do until that point.
Really then it’s more of the same for the week ahead.
Today is a rest day, as normal. No 2.5 hour rides, sadly.
I’ll aim to do 2x 20 minute efforts this week yet again, likely Tuesday and Thursday.
Beyond that, no major plans.