4 hour training ride today…

This week is the last of a set of progressively more challenging rides – next week is a rest week, where I’ll only be doing 8 or so hours of training (as compared to 11-12 hours for this week).  That will let me recover and start the next round of training better than if I tried training continuously.

Today was a 4 hour ride in zones 2-3, which is to say not terribly high intensity – definitely aerobic, some hard breathing, but not panting or anything.  Rolling hills or climbing – I elected to go up Page Mill Road (my favorite big hill) again, which is good for about 2000-2500 feet of climbing.  Made it up without incident – I didn’t have to stop to rest along the way, which was nice.  I felt good right up until about the third hour, when I felt like I ran out of gas – I need to eat more.

Tomorrow is a more intense ride, only two hours long but at an intensity a notch higher than today’s and with two 10-minute Zone 4 intervals put in.  Zone 4 is (for all intents and purposes) the max sustainable output – think of running as fast as you can for ten minutes.  You can push harder in a sprint, but at some point you’re panting and have to slow down to a sustainable pace.  That pace is Zone 4. So that’s going to be a challenging ride, especially after a long ride today.  Doesn’t sound un-do-able, though.

I think I’m going to start posting my weekly training schedule here, so you-all can track my progress.  Next week is a rest week (unexciting), but the week after that is the Cinderella Century, and of course I’ll have to have a costume for that.  The jury’s still out on whether I wear a tutu for the Death Ride.  🙂

I have now got my home computer more or less working, though I still need to reinstall a bunch of programs.  I have also got the warp beamed on for the weaving exercises, so now I have to thread the loom and finish prepping for it.

Off to take a shower…

Page Mill stats:

1:24 time on bike

1:31 total time to top (including rests)

avg speed 6.1 mph over 8.6 miles of climbing (~2000 feet elevation gain)