Three Hard Workouts: Tempo Ride, Track Intervals, Bike Intervals

My boys and I got back from a few days up north on Tuesday. Wednesday was a pretty normal day of workouts.

Thursday I got out for a 34 mile ride with the first 20 as a hard tempo effort. Nothing fancy, but a good hard workout after a week away from my bike. I rode hard until split #4, when I ended 20 miles at 21.2 mph:

Speed and heart rate dropping after 20 miles (the arrow).

Friday I hit the track for 4x800 then 4x400. The week before (RIGHT before leaving town on our trip up north), I did 4x(800 then 400), and I forgot how HARD that workout is compared to this 4x800 then 4x400. Now that days are super long, the last half of my workout was in the sun even though I was out early:

T-shirt and water bottle in the sun after my last interval.

2:00 rest between 800s, 90 sec rest between 400s

1:20 + 1:19 = 2:40.3
1:17 + 1:19 = 2:36.9
1:18 + 1:17 = 2:36.2
1:17 + 1:18 = 3:35.8

1:14.9
1:13.6
1:13.5
1:11.9

A PERFECT DESCEND!! The week before, my 800s were 2:43 down to just 1 that was 2:36. This workout was faster! But then my 400s on this workout were about the same speed as the week before.

Lots of laps, and then wandering around between trying not to die.

Finally, on Saturday I hit the Greenway Trail for some bike intervals: 5x4 mile efforts. I usually do 5 mile intervals (usually 3 or 4), but I didn't want to contend with "issues" on either end of the Greenway Trail, so skipped the "edges" and did 4 mile intervals in the middle instead. And I don't think I've ever done FIVE efforts on a bike ride like this.

15 mph wind from the west - slow heading "out," fast coming "back."


Intervals between the 2 groups of laps.


Splits on the east side...


... and splits to the west. (Just before Hwy 100.)


The intervals are shown as the five "bumps" in heart rate.

So that 15 mph wind from the west showed in all of my splits: #1, 3, and 5 were slow, and #2 and 4 were fast:

5x4 mile efforts, 3 mins easy riding in between:

#1: 12:16, 19.6 mph
#2: 10:35, 22.7 mph
#3: 12:09, 19.7 mph
#4: 10:11, 23.6 mph
#5: 11:54, 20.2 mph

I thought my heart rate was going to show me pushing harder INTO the wind, but that HR graph above is pretty even (if anything, my biggest spikes are going fast WITH the wind near the end of #2 and #4).

That was a busy Saturday afternoon on the trail, so I was working my way carefully around lots of people which slowed me up a LITTLE. It was still a good effort after a few decent workouts!

The following day (Sunday, which was yesterday), I took it easy to let my legs rest after a few big days!