'Bout Time for a Good Ride!

It had been well over 2 weeks since I had a "decent" "training" ride. Here's the last 3 weeks of biking:

The only real "training" rides are Thursdays and Saturdays.
Single digits are riding with my boys, in the teens is
commuting/rides to school, and 20+ miles is a "ride."

The week of the 13th had lots of commuting, and then my last hard workout was the 16th: 4x4 mile intervals down the Greenway. Two days later on the 18th I did a longer ride, but I took it a little easy, noting in my training log that "after feeling really exhausted a week ago, I still wasn’t excited to do anything with too much effort."

The 23rd and the 25th were both just a few days before the Brian Kraft 5K, so I took it easier there: the 23rd was a bit harder for 15 miles, and the 25th was all pretty easy.

And then the 30th was just 3 days after that fast 5K, so I kept telling myself to ease up so I didn't hurt anything. I didn't want to over-do it!

So FINALLY on Saturday (the 1st of June), I felt like I could / should bust out something fast again! I didn't hit the Greenway this time because it was mid-afternoon on a beautiful Saturday, so it would have been full of families. So I headed down Cleveland and planned to do some efforts on my "River Road / Big Rivers Trail / Shepard Road" loop. (That's still GOOD for me, but I like to do more "controlled" efforts when I can so I can compare them - but for this ride, I was just going to go hard wherever I was: whether it was up lots of hills or down lots of hills, I didn't care.)

I set out to do 3x5 mile intervals, but part way into my 2nd (as I was thinking where I'd go to make my 3rd interval the most productive), I figured I could do 4x5 mile intervals with 3:00 easy riding in between. So I did four! It might have been my first time doing that.

Map of my ride, with notes below. Intervals started on the odd numbers.

Here's what I did:

#1: 13:11, 22.7 mph. Split 1-2 on the map. Mostly downhill, but with the climb across the river and up to Hwy 13.

#2: 15:08, 19.8 mph. Split 3-4 on the map. Mostly uphill, climbing Big River's Trail up to Pilot Knob and then up to and around the Acadia Cemetary.

#3: 13:27, 22.3 mph. Split 5-6 on the map. Fast opening interval on Big River's and down under 494, then slow on Hwy 13 before turning around. This one was still net downhill, but had lots of ups and downs.

[I took a 4:30 rest her4e instead of just 3:00 because after 3:00 I was right to the top that quick nasty climb near 494 on Big Rivers... so I took another 90 sec of easier riding after that interval before starting my last one.]

#4: 13:06, 22.9 mph. Split 7-8 on the map. Mostly downhill on Big River's, ending with 2 miles flat on Water Street (nearly a reversed version of #2, but with less downhill at the start).

Here's my heart rate and elevation, with the bottom copy having the intervals highlighted in red:

Note the quick spike in heart rate before the last
one from climbing which is why I gave myself extra rest.

I did this later in the day than I'm used to, so I BONKED HARD around mile 30. (And part of that could be from doing a slightly more intense workout than I'm used to.) I was hoping to go close to 40 miles, but when I was nearing home around 36 miles, I could NOT get myself to turn off to tack on some more miles. That was enough! I got in the house and drank a lot of water, some soda, and had 2 frozen burritos. All of that made life better again. :)