2nd Outdoor Ride of 2020 (and First Yearly Ride up Ramsey and Ohio Hills)

I've been out with my boys on my bike a number of times this year so far (3 or 4), but Thursday was only my 2nd ACTUAL outdoor ride on my tri bike. My first outdoor ride was 4 weeks ago and was nothing special. This ride was just trying to find roads/trails that were not under construction.

Here's where I went (counter-clockwise from upper left):

When I crossed the river at the southern point, I had HOPED to head SW on Big River's Trail, but that was closed. So I headed up Water Street to the base of the Ohio Hill. I went up and over that, down the Smith Street High Bridge across the river, and right back up Ramsey. It was my first time this year up both of those hills, which is REALLLLLLY late for me! That just shows how much I don't care about my biking speed/fitness right now. Here's my pace chart:

The red bars are going up Ohio and then up Ramsey.

The 34 mph peak (mile 7) is heading down to Big River's, and the peak between the hills is going down Smith (and that's SURPRISINGLY slow, but I was between 2 nasty hill climbs).

Garmin splits/pace: 10.4 mph up Ohio (2:21), and 9.5 mph up Ramsey (1:23).

I was curious about these hill splits. My first ride 4 weeks ago showed I was in pretty crappy bike shape, but I've been doing a *bit* more on the trainer. (Not much, though, really.) So I searched for old "hill repeat" splits through my blog and my training log. Here's what I found:

• 1:23 up Ramsey in June 2019
• 1:23 up Ramsey in May 2019
• 1:21 up Ramsey in June 2018
• 1:23 up Ramsey in June 2017 as part of my PR ride of "the loop"
• Repeats averaging 2:17 up Ohio and 1:22 up Ramsey in February 2017
• Old hill repeat averages: 2:17 and 1:27 in 2015; and 2:27 and 1:36 in 2014

So my 2:21 up Ohio and 1:23 up Ramsey aren't ALL that bad compared to year's past. I tend to only ride Ohio when I'm in decent shape, so that was a bit slower this week, but my Ramsey hill pace is about what I normally ride. (I know that when I get that into the "teens" [meaning 1:1x] that it's a good day, so 1:23 isn't too bad.)