Training - Week 2

I'm only into my 2nd week of training but I'm already starting to see some benefits to the base riding I'm doing. This second week consisted of workouts on Tues, Wed, Thu, Sat and Sunday, all base riding stuff with some speed drills thrown in, all in zones 1 and 2 apart from the speed drills. Some of it was on my turbo in the confines of my garage but come the weekend it's out on my lonesome into the lanes of Cheshire on Saturday and Sunday saw a small group of us from the North Cheshire Clarion assemble in North Warrington and head north into the browns and greys of the area west of Wigan. The ride was billed as 'easy' a 'bimble' as that is what we associate with base training and it certainly was easy on occasion but working within my desired heart rate range often saw speeds of 17 to 19 mph on the flat so by no means a slow ride but the hills had me down to a crawl trying to keep my heart rate out of the anaerobic zone 5 - which I succeeded in doing.

I think we would have ridden the whole 43 mile ride without stopping for a break but one was asked of us as we (or Mike did) came to the aid of a punctured cyclist who had ridden out from Liverpool without a spare tube, I don't think anyone had a thought of stopping until it was asked of us. The weather held out, yes it was cold but it was not windy and no rain other than a few spots towards the end so today the weather held just long enough for us to get our ride in...

My training has had me peddling at 90+ rpm and in only the 2 weeks of this training I now find a high cadence quite natural and it certainly did help spinning as fast as I could up the hills we found along the route so something is going right with my training even this early into it; there's got to be lots of good stuff to come when base training is done and the threshold training takes over in a few weeks but for now I'm enjoying the ride and the scenery, smelling the roses as they say it's just a pity there are none around at this time of year...

My stats
Sunday run : 43.9 miles, 2hrs 58min, Av speed 14.7 mph, Av/max HR 139/166 (act max 191), 1912 ft climbing (Garmin)

80 % in zones 1 & 2

Totals for the week 123 miles, 8 hrs 19 min.