So Far So Good, Part Eleventy-Bazillion and One

Morning weigh-in: 184#

 

I guess I was pretty used to those towpath SS rides, where my legs would spin out trying to maintain even a moderate pace, since I was really worried about last night's "tempo" ride, but it turned out to be surprisingly easy. (I was on the Turner, of course...) Higher gears and I'd move along, just below needing to breathe hard; my speed wasn't too high The plan is to do 30 minutes, then 40 at my next tempo ride -- there are supposed to be two of these rides each week -- then 65 and 75 minutes next week, and both tempo rides for the third week will be 90 minutes. I should be running out of towpath by that point, even if out and back are both in the training zone.

 

Speaking of the Turner... I'd been having progressively worse and worse a time with the rear shifting -- didn't seem to be the cables, or that pain in the ass derailleur I have on there, or anything I could find -- then at Trex a few weekends ago the rear wheel started making amazing rubbing/grinding sounds. Intermittent but loud, it sounded like the rear tire was rubbing on something (a sound I associate with a broken frame), but there was nothing I could see rubbing... Home and on the stand, I gave the cassette a little wiggle and found out my freehub was shot. Luckily, I have a spare rear wheel, so I moved my cassette and tire over, did a little brake adjustments, and now everything seems to be working out fine.

 

Yesterday was supposed to be a rest day, but I did today's ride last night because tonight is the monthly VMB meeting. It should be a real shit-show -- stay tuned...

 

Break Time's Over

Morning weigh-in: 185.5#

 

Yesterday was the only ride I did last week, which was the rest week for my first training period; it was also my opportunity to do that Lactate Threshold test again (I plan to do the LT test monthly, basically as part of each period's rest week), and I found my heart rate at  LT has gone up by 6 beats per minute, from 159 to 165 BPM. I guess that's good news... I haven't really seen, or been able to figure out, anything, one way or the other, about changes to LT heart rate, whether up or down is good or bad or whatever, but hey -- I had a number, I trained, and the number went up. I win!

 

Tonight starts my first night of Base 2 training, and it's the first ride with the new (harder) HR zones based on my new number, and the first training ride outside of Zone 2: I'll be doing a "tempo" ride on the towpath, 30 minutes or so in Zone 3 after my warmup. We shall see.