rsbob 

26 fakers @ 200 W for 40 mins + warm up and cool down

Jay Turberville

I've found it much, much worse when it's unexpected. The ones we've lost that lived a full good life don't hurt as much.

rsbob 

Jay, you speak the truth. This is the first rather sudden death. With all the others we saw their gradual decline and were able to come to terms with a bit of relief.

She was dumped 4 years ago and we saw her wandering the neighborhood for a couple of weeks and took her in. She turned out to be absolutely wonderful, trouble free, super social and all our friends loved her too. We expected a long life together, but renal failure cut that way too short. All of our animals have lived long healthy lives, so this was a shock.

Appreciate your concern. Cheers.


Today’s ZWIFT FTP builder had two 20 minute segments at 200 Watts while holding 95 RPM. Focusing on maintaining the RPM was an excellent distraction.

Sierra_rider

Ignored the winter storm warning and went "gravel riding." I use that term loosely, as it started snowing before I ever left the pavement, and my tires never actually touched gravel underneath.

Anyway, 24 miles, 3600' of climbing, and an average temp of 32F.

jaxgtr

So after having to have some stitches put back in for a week and finally having them removed and letting the area heal a little more, I was able to get some time in the saddle and fake miles on the trainer. Did a quick warm up route of 2.6 miles to see how my hand would feel, then did a mild flat 56 miles as a follow up. I was planning 65, but started to feel the pressure at the base of my hand right on top of one of the incision lines that has healed nicely, but is still a bit tender. That area has been really tight, so I have been using one of my wife's stress balls to help relieve the tightness. Overall the legs felt pretty good.

Sierra_rider

Another outdoor ride, in the snow, to break up the indoor trainer monotony. This time I took the XC mountain bike and it wasn't actively snowing. I kept the race wheels off my old bike and finally put them on the Santa Cruz for the first time...I've got my first XC race of the season this weekend, so I wanted to make sure there wasn't any fine tuning that needed to be done.

Anyway...only 15 miles, 1750' of gain, and an average of a balmy 39F.

Troul 

27 miles with a fierce 17mph wind in 35°F. Just before the winter storm.

jaxgtr

Hand feeling much better, but the weather sucked today, so got in 74 mostly flat miles, I think there was about 300 ft of incline, so flat, but indoors in comfy 69F temps. Still ran the fans on medium though. Suppose to be heavy overcast and stupid windy in the 50's, so will probably stay inside tomorrow but do some climbing routes. Legs feel really good.

Sierra_rider

My first XC mtb race of the year was this morning, and I managed to pull off a first in the expert class for my age group. The start was a bit disorganized and we started with the pro's...I was marking some guys that I thought were in my class, but were actually pro. The plus side is that I rode away with them and away from my competition. It wasn't a super-stacked field, but today's result exceeded my expectations.

It was also the first race on my Santa Cruz, I was worried that the 120mm of travel F/R was going to be just a bit excessive for XC racing, but it's just about perfect. Crazy to think that a few years ago, I was debating 100mm full suspension vs hard tail, now the hardtail is virtually extinct in the local racing scene...and longer travel XC bikes are becoming the norm.

Anyway, about 3 miles of warm up time and scouting out the start and finish area. The actual race was 18 miles and 1600' of elevation gain. Other non-interesting stats: moving time of 1:20:00, average HR of 172bpm, and a normalized power of 293 watts.

rsbob 

You killed it! Way to get after it.

jaxgtr

Got in 56 real miles on Sunday. Was very very very cool almost cold at first, but warmed up to very very cool, not quite as cold by the time I got back home and the wind, so not bad until the very end.

jaxgtr

Got in 2 outside. Right after I left, I got a call from my wife she had gotten a flat and she was on the interstate. Nothing says sketchy like changing a drivers side tire with cars and trucks blowing by you at 75 mph. Luckily she happened to be in an area where there was a large shoulder where there are a couple of over passes for cars heading east. Had a highway patrol come up behind us and put his lights on, while I worked so people would move over. Probably the fastest tire change, I every did, lol. Luckily, I could just patch the tire, so got that taken care. Came back and did 53 inside.

Troul 

fastest spare swap I did was when I was with my relative & the car blew it's tire from a road void around 2:30AM in the city where street lights had no copper wiring going to them....

Sierra_rider

Took yesterday off, as my stomach was hurting pretty badly on my race day(Sunday) and yesterday. It was still a bit off this morning, but I managed to get 69 miles with 6400' of gain in today.

I was worried I was going to have a really bad day on the bike, but it was quite the opposite...I was drilling it all day, had a solid average power over the 4 hours, and even set a PR on a segment that climbs between miles 50 and 60. I'm down 25lbs from this time last year and even 10lbs down from my peak "race fitness" late last season, so I'm stoked about how I'm climbing right now.

jaxgtr

So I spent most of the day at the hospital, my very dark black coated dog decided he was going to lay out on the floor and my wife got up to get some water and boom, tripped over him, hit her head on the dresser. Luckily, nothing overly bad, no stitches needed, but she did have a very mild concussion. She was upset that I took her to the hospital ER, uhhhh get over it woman, your not young anymore. They kept her over night to watch her, did a couple of test and scans to make sure no internal bleeding or anything like that. So I have been up since 5 am Thursday, nervous energy, can't sleep, walk the dog for 3 miles, still no sleep, decided to hop on the indoor bike, did 56.5 miles 1800 ft of altitude gain. I was killing it, legs are sore, still can't sleep, so off to melatonin land should be zonked out here very soon.

Troul 

^ that's a long day, & you still managed to put the hammer down on some isolated miles!

ya know, if you were to have been in her shoes & communicated your feelings of being upset for being taken to the ER, she'd gave you an ear full.

Some nerve she has! lol j/m hope she gets well soon.

jaxgtr

Exactly, and that is what I said.... but all is well today. Said light is not bothering her today, so that is good news.

The Chemist

Weather cool and wet, so took my gravel/commuter bike rather than my road bike. Still a good ride.

Sierra_rider

After a long week of just indoor mileage, I was able to get outside once the rain let off today. Pretty productive ride, I was shooting for a little higher intensity and got it...set a PR on my local "benchmark" climb, which I did in 12:48. That surprised me, as I did squats,deadlifts,box steps, lunges, and some other core stuff this morning. I'm kinda interested to see what I can do if I hit it fresh...it's just cool to be rolling with this positive momentum I've had in recent weeks. The time might be just a bit skewed, as I did it on my UCI-illegally light climbing bike. IIRC, according to bike calculator, this thing is worth 10ish seconds on this climb compared to my "daily-driver" road bike.

Anyway...30 miles, 3500' of elevation gain, 15.5 average mph.

rsbob 

114 trainer miles this week including intervals, endurance and high intensity distance.

jaxgtr

Yea I hear you... I ended up with 168 inside last week and a few outside.

Sierra_rider

Took a advantage of a break in the weather and got out for some miles today.

104 miles, 9k' of climbing, and an average of 16mph.

rsbob 

30 fakers with 3000’ climbing. Knees a bit sore which is not good. Changed setting in ZWIFT to Max resistance which equals real life percentage grades rather than default of 50%. Why did they do that?

rsbob 

38 miles 1500’ on a mtb. Atmospheric river due Sat and Sun. Back to ZWIFT

jaxgtr

So the weather got warm here this week, but I did 80ish miles in doors, but did 104 miles outside today. Of note, I realized my hand is not happy with the outside riding and is still tender where I had the surgery on it. So will be staying indoors for another couple of weeks to give it more time to heal.