Saturday Training

Really excellent ride today with my mate Scott. Scott's the guy in the photo above, the other shot is the view towards Elsdon on the descent from Winter's Gibbet. We arranged a rendezvous at Longhorsley for just after 10 so I had around 17 miles to cover to the meet point, we then rode a hilly loop together incorporating many of the usual hill training culprits in Northumberland. Very challenging ride as it was incredibly warm for the time of year but to ride in shorts and short sleeves after such a gruesome winter was just fantastic.

Noticed when I got home that my rear tyre (ProRace 3) had worn to the point where the puncture resistant casing had become visible and I'll not tolerate worn or damaged tyres on any account. I'm also not into putting the front tyre on the back as some people do, my method is that if one of the tyres is worn enough to need replacing, they both get replaced, not of course if the problem is a single cut or the like though.

I've been extremely pleased with the ProRace 3 tyres and would definitely use them again and I think I'm going to stick with Michelin tyres for the foreseeable future. However I also want to try out my Michelin Pro3 Grips so I've fitted a pair of those this evening, I'll report back on progress. It's worth a mention that I've read of a few people saying that ProRace 3s cut up badly and puncture easily, this has not been my experience. I've had a good mileage out of the tyres bearing that they are not designed or sold as a high mileage tyre and apart from minor superficial nicks they have not cut up badly at all, I have had NO punctures on these tyres even on the poor road round here, I run them at 110psi.

So, all going well so far, another 60 or so miles scheduled for the morning and I'm hoping for another nice day. CTL currently up at 96.6 which is higher than I've built it to for a long time. The plan is to have a relatively easy week next week, I'll probably rest Monday and Tuesday, do something light on Wednesday, rest on Thursday, and then it's the start of the Tour du Nord on Friday. As the Tour du Nord is likely to generate a TSS over the 4 days of around 1400 I'm not too worried about my CTL dropping a bit next week! ;-) This plan would have me starting the Tour du Nord with a CTL of around 90 and a TSB which is just +ve or neutral which would be fine, it's not a race, it's a pre Tour Ride endurance event.

Ride Time: 04:16 hh:mm
Work Done: 2913kJ
Training Stress Score: 263
Intensity Factor: 0.784
Normalised Power: 239W
Variability Index: 1.27
Ride Distance: 73 miles
Cumulative Distance: n/a miles
Elevation Gain: 5614 feet
Maximum Power: 793W
Average Power: 189W
Average Heart Rate: 135bpm
Average Speed: 16.7mph
Acute Training Load: 124.2
Chronic Training Load: 96.6
Training Stress Balance: -14.2