First "Tempo Loop" of 2023!

Last week, I got out for my first short hard ride of the year. I posted on Wednesday about a 3x5 mile interval ride that I did just over a week ago, but I always do that workout on random roads. This tempo loop that I did last week is always on the SAME roads so I can "check in" on my fitness level.

Tempo loop counter-clockwise.
I can't say I really felt that 14 mph breeze out of the east.


I hit some road construction around mile 4: the 3 dark blue spots were
ENTERING a ramp, EXITING a ramp, and getting back out into the street.


And more road work on Summit - stuck behind a car in a single-lane area for 100 feet.


Then bombing down from Snelling a mile later!

I started relatively fast with a 22.6 mph average along River Road at Ford. I tried to keep that up (knowing I couldn't hold that) and hit downtown with a 21.5 mph average - that's where I turn off Shepard road around mile 10.5 and climb into the edge of downtown St. Paul. Then I climbed Ramsey Hill relatively fast (1:17 or 10.3 mph from crosswalk to "stop line" at the top) and was at 20.6 mph average at that point (dropping to 20.5 mph shortly after). At that point, I was feeling pretty good about things - I knew I could raise that a bit over the final few miles down Summit and up Cleveland.

I ended up getting it up to a 20.9 mph average!

THIS POST from 2 years ago shares a lot of previous averages for this ride, and then here's a post from last year about my spring ride on the same loop. In that post from last year, I had a 20.3 mph average, so I'm decently better off this year. And comparing times from the big post from 2 years ago, I see that I've been faster 5 times on this loop, and 4 of those were in 2017 when I was really biking a lot and in peak cycling shape (and then the 5th was the year after that in 2018). So this is a decent start to my 2023 cycling speed! I just need to keep it up and keep getting in good workouts!