Solid Tuesday, at last

I'm back baby!

I feel like it's been a difficult road back to get to where I was since before Ironman. After that race I had week's total recovery, then 4 weeks of overseas holiday with plenty of "good living", then a lazy few weeks after getting back to Sydney... So my riding has been in a very ordinary state and it's been a bit of a Catch 22 trying to get back in action again. The problem is that I haven’t felt like I’ve been able to keep up with the Boundary riders, so I’ve been reluctant to go on Tues and Thursday if I’m going to be dropped straight away. But I’m not going to get in better riding shape unless I get out there.

Basically I’ve spent the last 2 months only coming to the Friendly Friday ride and otherwise doing plenty of running, which I find really leaves my legs tired and heavy for cycling. So today I thought enough delaying, it’s time to fire up and come back!

It was a huge group of over 20, probably because of people being antsy after a full week of rain last week and the inspiration of Le Tour. The pace wasn’t overly fast thank goodness and I didn’t find it terribly hard to hang on in the bunch. The hills weren’t easy, but they weren’t terrible. Of course the paceline was always going to be the tester and I got blown out straight away without even taking a turn. I was so bloody thankful that the pack got caught by the traffic lights at Bike Addiction so I could catch up. The rest was fine, up until the Military Road sprint, but I’ve never been able to keep up with that anyway.

It was such a beautiful morning and a great ride, and good to see some of the guys again, that I just felt on top of the world after finishing.

Then at lunchtime it was a progressive tempo run with the HURTS boys. I find this a tough session, 45 minutes of hard running with no recovery and switching the pace up every 10 minutes. I’ve never done it properly, but I did come closer than usual today.

I turned at 23.5 minutes, about 50 metres before the corner of Hickson Road and that road to the right that sweeps up the hill to the Palisade. Was with Todd and Sam the first half but they started pulling away on the return trip and I couldn’t stick with them by the MCA. I finished halfway between the Art Gallery and the stone gates (the goal is to get back to the stone gates where we started).

Stats:
45 minutes total
HR average overall 157
HR max 173

1st 10 minutes – HR av 138
2nd 10 minutes – HR av 157
3rd 10 minutes – HR av 163
4th 10 minutes – HR av 166
Last 5 minutes – HR av 169