Mixed Results

I had an entire post in my head before I finished tonight's ride. But after looking over the power file... those ideas don't fit the results. This is off the top of my head.

The plan was 2h00 fast tempo with a 10sec maximal spin every 5th minute. The warm up is difficult. For some reason my stomach is burning. And I feel sloshy. But I get through it. When the time comes, it is clear from the way the legs feel the spins aren't going to be a good idea. As the power comes up much above FTP the legs just lactate up and start burning. Cool! They match my stomach, which is still burning and feeling turmoiled. I keep going without the spins, this may be a long afternoon. Keep the fast tempo. The stomach settles down after about 45'00 in. As long as I'm in my tempo zone... all is well. Any effort above starts burning. Hmmm...

I bypass my water stop today. I've brought enough. This is cool. I've never done this route non-stop. I'm feeling better. I think I cought every single light red between Hermann Park and River Oaks. Finally, as I enter I realize I'm free for a while. I decide to spin this hard. At this point I'm feeling great. I rip off a great 10'00 uninterrupted spin. It feels good, and I think I may want to look at this when I get home. The rest of the ride is fairly uneventful, except I feel better at the end than when I started.

Given the way I felt starting out, I didn't expect good results. But the power file says otherwise. My average was right on target. The normalized power was higher than expected (the starts and stops factor into this). And my 10'00 "time trial" through River Oaks looks darn good! Looking at it, and considering how I felt riding it, I've got a good idea what my FTP is. Improvements continue.

Sometimes it's not as bad as it seems. Good reason to never give up. Store that in the memory bank...