Saturday Training

2 good steady tempo rides in the bank today with a period of loafing around in the garden at the cottage cooking on the portable gas stove in between the rides, great fun! Both rides went well and I took a longer route home which took me over a substantial hill towards the end of the ride which doubled the climbing when compared to the outward ride. Pleased to still average 18.9 mph for this ride in spite of this and also pleased with the average HRs for both rides which were virtually identical and both in upper L2 which is ideal.

I'm no longer doing structured intervals in my training now and am just keeping my time in the saddle up as much as I reasonably can and putting the finishing touches to my endurance which has come along nicely. I'm still constantly making an effort to ride harder than I intend to during the "Leading The Tour" ride, as has always been my intention.

I'm hoping as far as possible during the ride to ride with a power output below 200W and to only use higher wattages when I have no choice. I know from my tests, and the way I have trained, that below this kind of wattage my blood lactate levels are very low, lower than most resting blood lactate measurements. This is a VERY strong indicator that at wattages below 200W my rate of glycogen depletion should be very low which is exactly what I want to achieve. As far as possible I want to be using body fat for energy during the ride by riding at an intensity lower than I have been training at.

All that said one becomes accustomed to training at L3 type intensities and it will be quite hard to suddenly ride at a much lower intensity than I have become used to. However, this is definitely the way to avoid a slow and steady decline in performance over time, or at least to limit the rate of decline.

Ride 1.

Ride Time: 01:01 hh:mm
Work Done: 805kJ
Training Stress Score: 65.8
Intensity Factor: 0.8
Normalised Power: 244W
Variability Index: 1.12
Ride Distance: 20.08 miles
Cumulative Tour Distance: n/a miles
Elevation Gain: 741 feet
Cumulative Tour Elevation Gain: n/a feet
Maximum Power: 650W
Average Power: 218W
Average Heart Rate: 137bpm
Average Speed: 19.6mph
Acute Training Load: 132.7
Chronic Training Load: 108.5
Training Stress Balance: -22.5

Ride 2.

Ride Time: 01:25 hh:mm
Work Done: 1117kJ
Training Stress Score: 90.1
Intensity Factor: 0.794
Normalised Power: 242W
Variability Index: 1.11
Ride Distance: 26.99 miles
Cumulative Tour Distance: n/a miles
Elevation Gain: 1417 feet
Cumulative Tour Elevation Gain: n/a feet
Maximum Power: 638W
Average Power: 217W
Average Heart Rate: 136bpm
Average Speed: 18.9mph
Acute Training Load: 132.7
Chronic Training Load: 108.5
Training Stress Balance: -22.5