COMPARING EVENTS AND INTERPRETING THE DATA
THREE OF THE LAST 4 WEEKS I've hit it pretty hard on Saturday. Twice on the road, once on gravel. All chasing much faster cats...
... doing all I can to hang on.
Today's was the biggest challenge...
... the most feared ride in these parts.
It's called Swami's, and is in the San Diego area.
One of the reasons it's so challenging is because that area has phenomenal athletes, and many of them are cyclists and triathletes.
The other reason, there is only one choice for a Saturday beat down.
I've pulled the data from just the blistering sections of the each day's workouts. Not the warm up or cool down or junk miles.
Below are my results.
Swami's
Two weeks ago, I chased my favorite national class offroad family... they just took 1st, 2nd, and 5th at MTB Marathon Nationals, today.
Gravel route
Three weeks ago, it was another very spirited gallop on the road.
Food Park
What can we see?
Work (kJ) was similar on the 2 road rides, the gravel ride was longer but when extrapolated a similar effort.
For all three rides, my Normalized Power (NP) was almost exactly the same.
A little bit lower on Food Park.
Average Power was highest on Swami's (223), the shortest ride, followed by the longer Gravel ride (216), with Food Park the lowest (200).
Max Power was similar on Swami's and Gravel (739, 730), and lowest on Food Park (653).
Ave Heart Rate, was nearly identical on the two road rides (155, 153) and a little lower on the longer gravel ride (145)... which also had some longish descents.
Soooooo... my fellow lovers of pain,
Which ride gives the best results when I'm searching for more explosive power in the 1-5 minute range?
While you're thinking about that, chew on this:
- I was dropped several times on Food Park but miraculously (stop lights) caught back on.
- On the gravel ride, I came off on most of the climbs, and reconnected on the descents.
- Today, on Swami's, I was shelled about 20 minutes in and rejoined after taking a short cut, then left behind again with 6-8ish miles to go.
My take away is that my fitness is rising, my ability to put out power is increasing and Swami's would be the best effort...
... if I could manage to stay on.
That used to be doable, terrible, but achievable.
My fitness, according to Strava is down 22% from a year ago and 29% from 2 years ago.
Considering it was almost zero in February, post injury, I'm pretty stoked and...
... looking forward to my next crack at Swami's.
What can I do better?
- Still need to carve off some blubber
- Coulda got better sleep last night
- More calories per hour
Now, what to do next week?
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163.8 (I can do better)
7 hrs sleep
PushUps and PullUps and Squats
10 minutes recovery
30 minutes reading + Journaling
100