Tempo Work

Squeezed in another 25 or so today. Spent probably 20 or 30 minutes of the ride at or above AT - essentially TT pace. Very painful, but noticeably more tolerable every time I do it. I didn't wear a HR monitor for this ride - I'm getting pretty good at gauging effort level by feel.

Numbers and such:
25.6 miles
20.4 mph
1 hr 16 minutes

54 degrees with winds 7-12 mph out of the NW. Wore bibs, base layer, jersey, leg warmers, short gloves and felt distinctly over-dressed for much of the ride. Probably should have skipped the base layer.

No race this weekend... again. I'll do the CSH ride Saturday morning and then head home for some family time.

I also moved my cleats inboard about 1.5 mm before the ride, and it made a huge difference in feel. I didn't immediately go, "oh man, these cleats are in a weird position" as soon as I clipped into the pedals, like I normally do. My shoes are now a little further away from the crank arms, so they don't rub when my feet slide around.

Ahhhh....

One advantage of being young is that I do one ride, give a day to recover, and then I'm pretty much back up to speed :-)

Just a hair over 40 miles today, averaged 17.8, which is a lot better than Saturday (16.4 over the same route).  It was warmer today, blowing a little less hard and more predictably, and I was dressed more appropriately for the temperature.  All of these contributed to bringing the average speed up.

Riding in zone two gives me time to monitor myself for bad habits.  My pedal stroke isn't perfect, but I'm not pedalling in squares either.  It's better than it was a month ago, which is encouraging.

Raising the saddle felt a lot better!  It's kinda sad it took me this long to do it.  Overall comfort was increased and my pedal stroke felt more natural.  I could probably come up a couple more millimeters, but given that this is the one adjustment I am extremely sensitive to, I'm going to leave it as it is for a while.  The other thing I toyed with doing was moving the saddle forward a bit, as I have a tendency to sit a little too far forward.  To be honest, I could use a slightly shorter stem, but that costs money.

Alright, off to class.