I definitely think a lot of books use heart rate zones as a slightly lesser alternative to power meters.

Yeah. My book actually does give heart rate zones, I'm not sure if you're supposed to stay within the HR *and* power ranges or just use HR if you don't have a meter. I've been mostly ignoring the HR ranges.

nice log, but don't get too bogged down in the powertap and other metrics. You want to be a better cyclist, then just get out and ride. 30 mile (50km) rides over rolling terrain will do more for your goals than anything else. Hill repeats and other interval stuff will show huge improvement too, but don't look at the data while your out there, review it later.

I went from 25km rides being very tough to 100km is just a warmup, in a little over a yr. Fuel like bananas and energy gels are required while you ride to avoid the dreaded bonk too. have fun.

I spent most of last year doing increasing distance, starting from about 50 miles/week up to about 150 mi/week (250km/week). I definitely had a lot of improvement in that time but also hit a wall in terms of avg speed over distance. So what I'm doing this year is trying to improve that. The point of a HIIT program is to spend less time for the same (or better) results.

loooooooooool Cres

aidan is like the guy I cycled the SFU hill with, he built a high end Cervelo, and barely beat me to the top when I was on my single speed. The he freaked because I passed him twice on the descent. losers gone loser I suppose.

but but but my theory should make me so much faster.

I see what you're saying and I don't even think you're wrong. But a few years of riding aimlessly didn't get me where I wanted to be, so I'm trying something different. I won't be spending as much time watching the computer once I figure out what these intervals are supposed to feel like, but for the time being I have no frame of reference, so I'm keeping an eye on the computer.

Had to do the short end of the cycling today, early meeting at work. Went fine though, did it at a little higher intensity than last time to try to make up for it. Still within the recommended range, just on the higher side.

Also lifted weights today. Wasn't too bad.

Cycling
Time: 59 minutes
Distance: 16.3 mi
Avg Power: 182 watts
Avg HR: 146
Avg Speed: 16.7 mph
kJ: 600

Weight Lifting

Exercise	WeightxReps
LBBS	65.0x5, 115.0x5, 160.0x5, 160.0x5, 165.0x5
Bench Press	65.0x7, 115.0x5, 135.0x5, 135.0x5, 135.0x5
Deadlift	115.0x5, 165.0x5, 215.0x5
Pull-Ups	7, 7, 7

Did you ever say what brand/model power meter you are using? Do you like it so far? I might give in and buy one eventually, just was wondering your opinion.

He has a powertap, post #19

This.

Yep, powertap, with a Garmin Edge 500 cycling computer. I like it just fine so far.

Well, I got less than 1mi into a ride today when all of the sudden the back wheel went wobbly. I thought I'd gotten a flat, but I looked down and the wheel was quite visibly out of true. I stopped and checked it out and I actually cracked the rim and a few spokes came out. The rim was showing signs of cracking at every other spoke on the drive side.

I took it into a shop, they confirmed that the wheel builder had the spokes way too tight on the drive side.

So anyway, getting the wheel rebuilt, won't have the wheel back until the 20th. I have another bike, I'll probably ride that tomorrow. It's a pretty ancient "crossover", but it's what I used to ride a few years ago, it'll be OK in a pinch. Although the seat on it sucks serious balls, I may have to swap that out temporarily.

I took my old bike out for a ride today - it was awful. My old bike is a 15 year old hybrid, basically a mountain bike without shocks or disc brakes or any of that. I guess it needs to be re-fit to me because my knees ached terribly after about 5 miles. I tried to adjust the seat but it just was not working out. So that's out, I guess I'll wait until I get my bike back and just restart from the beginning of this week.

Well, I still don't have my wheel back, so in the meantime I hauled out one of my old ones and put it on the bike. No powertap in that one so I'm training by HR for a week. The biggest difficulty there is slowness in response. It takes a bit for your HR to start increasing when you add power and then takes several seconds to see it in the monitor. This leads to over-shooting and over-correcting. Not a big deal though.

So I'm picking up where I left off, which is saturday of week 1. 2 hours of "EnduranceMiles" which is low intensity distance.

Time: 1:56 minutes
Distance: 30.1 mi
Avg Power: N/A
Avg HR: 141
Avg Speed: 15.6 mph

Oh and I went to see a doctor about my wrist - I must have strained/sprained it. I'm in a brace for 3 weeks and then we'll see. No weight lifting until then.

Went on a ride with a friend, it was his first ride since may, so we took it pretty easy.

Time: 2:20 minutes
Distance: 33.2 mi
Avg Power: N/A
Avg HR: 130
Avg Speed: 14.6 mph

Significantly hillier than yesterday also - probably about double the elevation gain.

Today's scheduled ride was a 60-90 minute "EnduranceMiles" workout with 3 x 10min "SteadyState" intervals mixed in (SteadyState is at or around threshold power). Was so foggy that visibility was less than 50 feet - I really wish I'd taken my lights but it wasn't so obviously foggy when I left.

Oh - and this ride included a PR on the hill climbing up to my house. I blew the doors off it, went up this hill at 19 mph and took 11s off my time. 3 more seconds and I'm king of the hill on strava.

Time: 1:22
Distance: 22 mi
Avg Power: N/A
Avg HR: 144
Avg Speed: 16 mph

My schedule for the week is

Day	Workout 1	Workout 2
Mon	Rest
Tue	60-90 min EM with 3x10min SS (5 min RBI)
Wed	Rest Day
Thurs	60-90 min EM with 3x10min SS (5 min RBI)
Fri	Rest Day
Sat	90 minute EM with 2x[3x2min SEPI (3 min RBI)] (8 min RBS)
Sun	90-120 min EM or group ride

The thread title led me to believe this was a completely different type of thread.

Keep up the good work, though.

Basically same kind of ride as tuesday.

Time: 1:23
Distance: 22.3 mi
Avg Power: N/A
Avg HR: 138 (hm, I didn't think I was working less hard, but I guess so)
Avg Speed: 16.1 mph (same basic speed. Prob just a fluke, temperature or something)

Was super foggy again, kind of scary. I could see headlights of cars like 15s before I could ever see the car itself. I had a tail light on but I couldn't find my headlight. More concerned about the rear anyway.

Glad y'all took it easy. You're hard pressed getting me to drive 30 miles.

Also, interested in Strava. Assume you have to have a GPS device to go with that program?... or can it just run off of my iPhone while riding?

It's pretty easy to work your way up to long distances on the bike. You just have to combat or get used to boredom. I'm definitely way more patient about driving places now.

You can run it as an iphone/android app, or you can run any app that lets you export like a GPX file and import those, or you can use any garmin device that includes GPS.

Rained all day yesterday so I didn't ride. Went out riding today and did "saturday's" ride, the one with the power intervals in them.

Intervals were 2 sets of 3 by 2 minute max-power sections, with 3 minute rests in between. Went maybe a little too hard the first one and could only make it through 90s.

Wind was *ridiculous*. 20mph, every time you turned kinda into it, it would threaten to knock the bike over.

Time: 1:25
Distance: 18.5 mi
Avg Power: N/A
Avg HR: 142 (hm, I didn't think I was working less hard, but I guess so)
Avg Speed: 12.9 mph (lol)


The annual Livestrong charity ride is coming up and we always have a big group from work doing it. It's the reason I got into cycling and this year we have a few new riders so I agreed to join some basic training rides for those folks. So I'll probably cheat and ride on my off day, but probably not real hard.

Since I did my saturday workout on sunday, doing my sunday one today. I have mon/tues off officially so I think it'll be OK. This was just a basic slow and steady ride, 90-120 minutes (I opted for the shorter because I did it during my lunch break)

Time: 1:30
Distance: 24 mi
Avg Power: N/A
Avg HR: 137
Avg Speed: 16 mph

Today was 3 sets of 12 minute SteadyState intervals worked into the normal EnduranceMiles. Recommended time was 60-75 minutes, mine was 82. No fog today.

Time: 1:22
Distance: 22.1 mi
Avg Power: N/A
Avg HR: 140
Avg Speed: 16.2 mph

Similar to yesterday except 10 minute intervals for some reason instead of 12. I was feeling it so I rode a little faster than I have been, but still tried to stay within the prescribed limits. Basically just rode at the upper edge of it the whole time.

Oh and I beat the record time up the hill to my house a few days ago (Sunday) but my record was immediately beaten by 7 seconds (mine was 1:17, new guy killed it at 1:10, which I will probably never ****ing beat)

Time: 1:19
Distance: 22.2 mi
Avg Power: N/A
Avg HR: 142
Avg Speed: 16.8 mph