Doesn’t sound like your recent illness slowed you down much - maybe HR? Way to crush your class.

I don't totally ignore Garmin, but yeah...sometimes some of the suggestions are a bit off. Right now Garmin Connect is freaking out about my training progress...it doesn't like that I took a week off because of illness, then had another light week of easy activity, but then rebounded with 15 hours of activity this week. I guess it thinks I'm over-training with those 15 hours, even though I was doing that much volume before I got sick.:foo:

I'm pretty much back to normal...HR is no longer elevated compared to power, and my power is back. My overnight HR variability finally came back to normal levels, it had been suppressed quite a bit during the illness.

This is the highest average HR I've seen during a race this year, but I chock that up to just being on the gas more this race. This particular series, I've had a bad habit of just "settling" for whatever place I shake in after the mid-point of the race. Sounds corny, but I was yelling at myself to "close the gap" whenever I'd let a gap open today. Luckily no one else could hear me, or they'd think I was completely off my rocker. It helps that I wasn't doing a double-header of racing this week, last time I did a 90 mile gravel race the day before the XC race.

Since I live in flatlands, did some Zwift training to prep for a trip to the Alps.

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28 miles is my best

Your best for now. I'm sure you will exceed that distance pretty soon. Just keep at it!

21-spot. 62 degrees.

Back to the indoor workday grind...between 2 Rouvy routes, roughly 24 miles and 1600' of fake climbing. It's looking like a week of crappy weather, so probably a lot more indoor riding this week.:(

More indoorsy stuff...20 miles and 2400' of virtual Slovakia.

15-spot that included a stop at the ole lbb to true the front wheel and hit a new burger place. will hit (both) again at some point.

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Another ride out to the Arakawa river. The ride getting to the river across metro Tokyo was tedious due to the weekday traffic congestion. But being on a bike I made good time, had I driven my car to the same place, it woudl have taken another 20 minutes or so.

The river trail was nice and quiet, and I had a nice tailwind pushing me toward Tokyo Bay. The countless sports fields were quiet, right now Japaneses kids are enjoying their last few days of spring break before the new school year starts on Wednesday. They’d rather stay home and play games than play sports, they’ll get enough sports when school starts.

There were lots of old people and daycare kids. It was a beautiful, sunny, and warm day for a change, and I can finally put away my winter gear.

I crossed the river before getting to Tokyo Bay to ride through Kasairinkai park, famous for its ferris wheel and aquarium. Then it was lunch at McDonald’s, and a 25km ride through traffic to get home.

2 hours riding 30 virtual with 1300’ zone 3. Thanks Sierra for the tip on how to set up custom workouts in ZWIFT - worked great.

Our local Wednesday night XC MTB series had its first round tonight. It was far from a technical course, so mostly was about who could put out the most power. I drilled it with some pros on the first lap and gapped the guys in my class. Once I was comfortable with my lead, I let the pros go and maintained to the finish.

6 miles of warm up laps. The race itself was 12 miles, only about 1050' of climbing, and 45 minutes of rolling time. Average power of 270 watts and a normalized of 310.

2 rides today...I took my main road bike out, made it a couple miles down the hill and the front shifter took a dump on me. I did new shift cables a couple months ago and it doesn't feel like a snapped cable, so I'm suspecting something more sinister. I'll probably take it apart tonight to inspect...not too surprised if it is worn-out, as I've replaced all the components at some point except the brifters and brake calipers(Ultegra 8000 mech.) It's a stupid reason to want a new bike, but this as just added to the jonesin' I've been having towards a new bike.

I took my back-up bike/weight weenie bike out for ride 2 of the day. That I did without incident and ended up setting a bunch of climbing PRs along the route. One of them was on a rather shallow 18 mile climb. I'll never be in the top 10 on that particular climb, as all the top times were from when the Tour of California rolled through and they established a large breakaway on it.

Anyway, ride one: 4 miles, 400' climbing
ride two: 47 miles, 4700' climbing.

I rode my 1999 trek slr 6700 MTB to the neighboring town which is 2km far from me, the bike is extremely responsive and fast. I went to the train station for buying my monthly train ticket, going back and forth was just done in 20 min.

Took 10 days off the bike as I tweaked my knee after my dog took me out when he decided to go say hello to the geese in our neighborhood. I really need to register him to chase geese off of golf courses and neighborhoods, only he likes to jump into the water being the water dog that he is.

Got in 49 fake miles and 2700 ft.

Just goes to show that every broken shifter has a silver lining made of PRs (and maybe a new ride!)

The shifter ended up being a minor repair, I fixed it, but had to take the cable out in the process. I've got the cables back in the frame, but didn't get the derailleurs dialed in before going out to dinner with some family tonight(I was feeling lazy today.) As far as the new ride...there will be some big developments next week lol.

The crappy weather was back today, a snow/rain mix...so some indoor riding on Rouvy. Did a Lake Tahoe route as well as Prague. I had my gravel bike on the trainer for the first time, I managed to spin out the low-gravel gearing on a virtual descent. Anyway, a total of around 31 miles and only 2100' of fake climbing.

went three times again to my bike tech in the neighboring town at 2km, first time was for repairing the lights of the giant , adding reflectors and bell. Second time was for a general check up of my trek 6700 SLR and third time for a general check up of my trek 6500 SLR. Everything was done quickly and for each travel it was fast nearly 20 min back and forth

Nice power output on Lake Tahoe.

You are lucky you can just pop-in. Around here, all repairs, no matter how minor, require an appointment and then a two week wait to get in.

Thanks. I've been transitioning to a more "pyramidal" approach to my training recently. Still heavy in low intensity minutes, but I'll dip into tempo at certain points of the ride...that was my aim with Tahoe at least.

A side note, my idea of pyramidal isn't the same as sweet spot. I'd say that pyramidal still skews heavily towards low intensity work.

I know . The bike mechanic knows me for over 15 years and assembled several of my mountain Bikes and upgraded my hybrid and my favorite road bike, I have even given him back then valuable spare parts, a bike that he gave to a customer and one of my frames that he will repair and build as his own project as I don't have space anymore for road bike projects. For a complete assembly of a bike project, the deadline is two weeks and then he calls me.

Another indoor session today, this time Zwift. About 11 virtual miles and 3k fake feet.

I thought I had enough energy to do some FTP interval training, but failed in my first interval, turned it into a zone 2 ride. I had to take a couple weeks off because of illness earlier in the month, so I've been putting in big hours the last 2, trying to make up for it. Between that and a couple of demanding races, the fatigue is starting to sneak up on me. That's ok, as next week should be an easy week for me. I'm just trying to dial in my form for my first big "A" race of the season on April 19th.

Got in 82 when this decided to embed itself in my rear wheel today. What is so weird, I think the tubeless sealant might be inside the wheel, as there was none in the tire, and I put in about 90 mil last week. Could not put a tube in on the road as I could not get the screw out, so I had to make the call of shame. It took a ratchet and socket to get it out. Unfortunately, will have to replace a rim strip and rear tire, but the wheel falls under Bontrager no questions asked 1 yr warranty program. New wheel here by end of next week. I can deal with the minor cost not to have to endure a major wheel replacement cost. Luckily, my wife was about 3 miles away at a road side flower place, so I saved even more money. :thumb:

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43 with 1400’ Zone 2. 50s today and cloudy with a big headwind on the return.

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Yesterday, March 30, 2024, I rode 30 miles. First ride in 2 weeks.

More virtual miles today, this time back on main road bike, with repaired shifter. I was starting and stopping a couple different Rouvy routes until I settled on one. All together, about 14 virtual miles and 4000' of fake climbing. The bulk of the riding was on the virtual Col du Granon in France...rode tempo up that at 285ish watts for an hour.

I ended up at 43 hours and 580 miles total for the month of March. I was on track for 60 hours, but had a couple of light weeks because of the RSV.:crash:

Got to the half of my local trail with the Giant Bronco due to heavy rain. The Giant was a real pleasure to drive in heavy rain and in mud. The Continental Cross King tire provides phenomenal grip under rainy and muddy condition. The XT 780 T/XT T8000 transmission was and is working superbly.

20 Miles today

32 at Zone 2 at an 18 MPH ave. Rest day tomorrow 0 argh.