Mike's Bike Blog

Before I get into the session I had a couple rides before this one. For lunch I road out to the top of Limecreek which is 3 miles and then I road through my neigborhood. Total ride was 8.6 miles, I averaged 17.1 mph. Here's the route, I think I found a mile loop around the block that I might try. I've been looking for a relatively flat mile loop close to home since I'm no longer riding the Wells Fargo loop. The other ride today was a 3.79 mile ride with my boys. We road down to Milburn park to ride the trails there. At the back of the park there are some neat trails. There is a 3.8 mile paved loop that Jack did in 2:39, he averaged 8.5 mph and his top speed was 9.9 mph. He's really getting the hang of his mountain bike, I heard him shifting several times as we would hit hills and then he would shift to go down. Here's the route we took.

Now onto session 14 of the Chris Carmichael Training Boosting SteadyState Power with Kirk Nordgren:

"Four eight-minute SteadyState intervals gives athletes of all ability levels a solid 32 minutes at the intensity guaranteed to make you a faster athlete. Do yourself, and your sustainable power, a big favor and keep this workout in your training arsenal all year long." As the description says there were 4 SteadyState intervals, 8 minutes each. On the first effort I seemed to have a hard time keeping my cadence between 90 - 95 rpm. Not sure why that was, but on the other 3 efforts I only caught myself falling below 90 a few times. On the last effort I had very few if any lapses in my cadence. Since I'm only working with heart rate my SteadyState computed HR is 138-144. Now keeping it at 144 was another story, I averaged 152, 150, 150, 144 bpm for each of the 4 intervals. Only 2 more sessions left.

I'm having problems with my Blackburn Delphi 3 again. Last week it stopped working, only the cadence was working. I changed the battery and it worked, well at the end of the last interval the speedometer started wigging out, it would go from 18 mph down to 2 and then up to 50. It was gong all over the place, it says I hit a top speed of 99 mph. I know I'm getting faster using the Carmichael training sessions but I never expected results like 99 mph. Not sure what's going on with the device. 

Prior to this ride the longest ride I'd done was 50 miles. The round trip total was 60 miles. I got the idea for this ride as it is where the Georgetown cyclopaths meet for their Sunday afternoon ride. On the ride out there I averaged 18mph, I felt really good. I like the route Parmer is a nice road to ride on with a wide shoulder and 2243 to Georgetown is a relatively quiet road with few cars. On the other side of I-35 the traffic is pretty light and there is enough shoulder to ride on. There was only 1 stretch on Inner Loop heading back in that there was no shoulder. Luckily on this stretch, about 1/2 mile, there is a turning lane so passing cars were courteous enough to move over into the median when passing me.

I was not expecting the amount of wind on the return trip, it really took a toll on me. It was in my face right from the start when I turned around at the park. The wind in Georgetown is typically strong anyway and it really took a toll on my legs. I didn't get a reprieve from the wind until I got back onto Parmer. By that time the power in my legs were tapped, but with the end in sight I kept on. Right after 1431 my back tire got a flat, I pulled off and changed it out. It took just long enough for my legs to start locking up. Onward I pushed and made it, it took 2:08 to get back.

I'm one step closer to building my base to handle a century ride.

MotionBased.com ride stats