This is only a minor case of Karma comeuppance, reminding me not to go boasting of my prowess. Yesterday's ride was a power drill. Four times ten minutes at ~170 watts, after a twenty minute warm-up. I was feeling pretty good, but had to contend with a stout NE wind. For a generic ride I'd normally take a north-south route, fighting the wind the first half and enjoying a tail wind on the return. But I have difficulties holding my power numbers with the wind pushing me, so I took an east-west course, Chandler Road.
The warm-up went well, legs felt good, and I hit the lap button to begin the drills. I closely monitor my Garmin, shifting more than usual in an attempt to hold power. I was quite pleased with what I saw. Still going east for my second set, I again was ten or more watts over the goal. For those familiar with Training Peaks, I was at FTP rather than 10% below.
The third set put the wind on my right shoulder, thus using higher gears and increasing my speed by about five mph. Power numbers remained high. The fourth set would have me going south on CR 119. This is the Strava section where I briefly held the KOM, and am still fifth All Time (not age group). The wind would be mostly at my back. I decided to go all out and try to beat my best time. By doing so I knew it would be about half of what I should be doing, but the wattage much higher. I was really fast, pushing big gears, and could hardly wait to get home to check the data, wondering how many seconds I'd shaved off my best time and what the actual power numbers were.
Karma! Don't know how it happened but Garmin corrupted the data. Not being very computer literate, I went online to see if it could be recovered. Back in February I couldn't get the computer to turn on just before a race and Todd gave me instructions that worked. Perhaps I mis-remembered them, but in any case, I ended up doing a hard reset. That cleared everything. I spent the afternoon re-programming the computer. I know I had a good workout, just don't know how good.
But not all was lost. When I'm out on the road I also use Strava on my phone so that Marilane can track me and know where I am in case I need assistance. This results in two entries on Strava once I plug in the Garmin, and I delete it when I get home because it is a duplicate and doesn't have power or cadence numbers. It's fun to see the estimated power as long as you put no credence in it. In this case, it showed me hitting 500+ multiple times and averaging 297 for the 4 minutes and 57 seconds.
While the power data is spurious, the speed and time were accurate. I averaged 26.3 mph. That put me twelve seconds slower than my best time, and faster than the seventh place All Time finisher. I'll keep advertising my accomplishments on the bike, but will be more low-key about it.
Sunday, April 26, 2020
Monday, April 20, 2020
TOOTING MY HORN!
I take having fun on my bicycle seriously. Like today, I did fifty miles, riding up to Walburg and back. This was a ride just to get in some miles, enjoy the countryside, get some fresh air. My average heart rate was a paltry 102, so you know I didn't do much pushing. But on other days I'm working on getting faster overall, faster in the sprints, faster with my cadence. I do lots of drills. This is for serious cycling, that is, racing. Of course, all of that is on hold at the moment but that doesn't mean I slack off.
With tongue in cheek, I can give you some stats that sound quite impressive. For instance, in the last fifteen years I've done 155 races (as a senior, we don't have many per year). Even counting the first year, where I had no medals, I've podiumed 77% of my races, 29% being gold. My best races are time trials, 107 races, 36% gold, and only 13% off the podium. But stats can be deceiving. Many of those gold medals races had me placing first and last. Sadly, the race pool is very slim.
True, I'm a past national silver medalist, so I do ok against actual competition. But even that comes with an explanation. Seniors are grouped in five year increments. Most of my gold comes when I'm the youngest in my group. As it turns out, I get two years before major competition bumps me to third or worse.
But there is another type of competition: Strava Segments. Strava has kindly made age (and weight and sex) categories. After years of shunning Strava, several years ago I joined. I pay attention to the 75+ segments, and last year complained vigorously to Strava that on many segments they inserted folks who shouldn't be there. Their ages ranged from 12 to 56, of those I could verify their ages. But that is water under the bridge, or over the dam, whatever.
If you go to any of the Great Northern segments, I top most of the 75+ category. On other rides, where I'm just out riding, I'm near the top mainly because everybody else is doing what I'm doing, just cruising along. Last year I had a KOM crown on CR 119, mainly because it had just opened and I was one of the first to ride it. I got to look at the crown when I got home but within a few hours it had been eclipsed. I still have the 75+ top spot.
Where is all this going, you might think. Yesterday I was supposed to do my "hill" ride in the morning, except the drizzle wouldn't stop and I wasn't going to bomb down hills on wet asphalt/concrete. So I put it off until the afternoon and instead just did some loosening of the legs at Old Settlers Park. Just an hour of cruising around. Old Settlers Park only has one Strava segment. It is like a minus 1% grade (24 feet drop over 3/10 of a mile) and straight, like a drag strip. As a matter of fact, that's the name of it: Old Settler's Drag.
I use this section to practice sprints, and for the last year or so have been tied with my friends Dave and Rebekah at 22 seconds. But I was listed third. Yesterday, as I was winding up my hour, I thought I'd give it a go. True, my decision had something to do with a favorable west wind. In any case, I took the corner at speed, upped my cadence, and gave it my best shot. After 24 hours it's still there, so maybe I can keep it awhile.
With tongue in cheek, I can give you some stats that sound quite impressive. For instance, in the last fifteen years I've done 155 races (as a senior, we don't have many per year). Even counting the first year, where I had no medals, I've podiumed 77% of my races, 29% being gold. My best races are time trials, 107 races, 36% gold, and only 13% off the podium. But stats can be deceiving. Many of those gold medals races had me placing first and last. Sadly, the race pool is very slim.
True, I'm a past national silver medalist, so I do ok against actual competition. But even that comes with an explanation. Seniors are grouped in five year increments. Most of my gold comes when I'm the youngest in my group. As it turns out, I get two years before major competition bumps me to third or worse.
But there is another type of competition: Strava Segments. Strava has kindly made age (and weight and sex) categories. After years of shunning Strava, several years ago I joined. I pay attention to the 75+ segments, and last year complained vigorously to Strava that on many segments they inserted folks who shouldn't be there. Their ages ranged from 12 to 56, of those I could verify their ages. But that is water under the bridge, or over the dam, whatever.
If you go to any of the Great Northern segments, I top most of the 75+ category. On other rides, where I'm just out riding, I'm near the top mainly because everybody else is doing what I'm doing, just cruising along. Last year I had a KOM crown on CR 119, mainly because it had just opened and I was one of the first to ride it. I got to look at the crown when I got home but within a few hours it had been eclipsed. I still have the 75+ top spot.
Where is all this going, you might think. Yesterday I was supposed to do my "hill" ride in the morning, except the drizzle wouldn't stop and I wasn't going to bomb down hills on wet asphalt/concrete. So I put it off until the afternoon and instead just did some loosening of the legs at Old Settlers Park. Just an hour of cruising around. Old Settlers Park only has one Strava segment. It is like a minus 1% grade (24 feet drop over 3/10 of a mile) and straight, like a drag strip. As a matter of fact, that's the name of it: Old Settler's Drag.
I use this section to practice sprints, and for the last year or so have been tied with my friends Dave and Rebekah at 22 seconds. But I was listed third. Yesterday, as I was winding up my hour, I thought I'd give it a go. True, my decision had something to do with a favorable west wind. In any case, I took the corner at speed, upped my cadence, and gave it my best shot. After 24 hours it's still there, so maybe I can keep it awhile.
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