TWO Decent Bike Workouts Last Week

>> Monday, June 02, 2025

I haven't been doing any "good" bike workouts lately. I've been feeling on the verge of overtrained and exhausted for a while now, and I've been biking easier to try to "recover:" I usually bike on Thursday and Saturday, and Friday is the day for my interval workouts. So I've been going easier on my Thursday rides so I have some power in my legs for my hard run on Friday, and then I don't want to kill myself on a hard ride Saturday after a hard run the day before, so I bike easy then as well.

But because last week started with a 5K on Monday, I didn't do a speed workout on Friday (I just ran easy). So that allowed me to bike hard on Thursday AND on Saturday!

Thursday, I went out with minimal time and did 4x4 mile intervals along the Greenway trail. I took 2:30 - 3:00 easy riding between the intervals. I started #1 miles from the Greenway, so #1 was "odd." Then #2 was down the Greenway, #3 was back (WITH the wind!), and #4 was half down and half back. They looked like this:

#1: 11:57, 4.01 miles, 20.1 mph

#2: 11:35, 3.99 miles, 20.7 mph

#3: 10:00, 3.95 miles, 23.7 mph

#4: 11:03, 4.08 miles, 22.1 mph

Here's the main stretch of the Greenway shown by my Garmin map, and that's the stretch where I did #2 to the west and #3 to the east:




Hard to spot the first interval because it was more random on city streets...


... so here are the 4 intervals highlighted.

Then I snuck out for a slightly longer ride on Saturday (30+ miles), and I did the first 20 at tempo pace. Also, I heard that the 35E bridge was back open to pedestrian traffic, so I thought I'd take that way... my NORMAL route that I haven't been able to do since March! I found that it wasn't open towards downtown St. Paul yet, but the trail was open to the tunnel under 35E and across the river! SWEET! I had been missing out on one of my "hillier" rides because of that closure. (Also mentioned in a post 2 weeks ago.)


Using the 35E bridge to get to Big Rivers!
(It's been possible to take Hwy 5 to Hwy 62 to
get over the rivers, but there are a lot of steps!)


The red part is what I've been missing out on because of the trail work.
Now I'm back to riding some of my favorite training hills!


Harder through 20 miles, then just moderate.

I did those slightly hillier 20 tempo miles in 55:42, or 21.5 mph average. That's nothing amazing, but it was just good to get in 2 solid back-to-back bike workouts when I've been skimping in the saddle lately!

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