Bike Bike Week!

Last week was a big week in the saddle, but it was a little more special than that. Here's a quick look at the week, with bike workouts in green:

It was an unusual week because the Raspberry Run 1 Mile was on Sunday the 19th (the day before that week started), so I didn't start last week with a long run. I rested my legs. So I just biked to the gym, went for a swim, and biked home (that's the 2 bike workouts on Monday, totaling less than 5 miles).

What makes last week's bike numbers special is that I biked 121.7 miles, but that included 3 SOLID and ACTUAL bike workouts! In the past, many of my big bike weeks have been a lot of errands and/or commuting on my bike. But this was actual rides. Tuesday's was a moderate ride being it was just 2 days post-race, Thursday's ride was 4x5 mile intervals, and Saturday's ride was a 25 mile tempo with extra at the end to get over 40 miles on the day.

For example, let's look at 2 big weeks from exactly 1 year ago: I had back-to-back weeks of 103 and 112 miles. That was 13 bike "workouts" over those 2 weeks, but only 4 of those were on my tri bike. And of those 4, only 2 were hard, 1 was "moderate," and 1 was easy. I had 2 hard and 1 moderate ride in 1 week last week, not over 2 weeks with lots of other easier rides. It's easy to stack up 100+ mile weeks when you're running errands on your bike, but not actually "working out." (Yes, there's a lot to be said for just "being fit" and using your bike... I'm not against that. I'm just noting that it *is* different when looking at total miles. Were the bike rides just getting around town? Or were they hard training workouts? Those 2 different kinds of miles feel different.)

TUESDAY I just biked moderately for about 35 miles:

I searched out some hills, but didn't ride hard.

THURSDAY I hit the Greenway for 4x5 mile intervals (on the stretch between split #4 and split #6 on this map):

And then a longer cooldown to splits #9 and #10 to get over 40 miles on the day.


Intervals highlighted in red.

Those intervals felt the best they have all year, and my 5-mile averages were 21.3 mph, 22.3 mph, 21.5 mph, and 22.9 mph. Nothing amazing, but I haven't had speeds quite that high this year.

SATURDAY I hit the Mendota Bridge detour to get to Big Rivers, and I did 25 miles hard at the start of a 41+ mile ride:

Hard through split #5, also hitting hills like 4 days prior.

This week will be smaller again, but then I hope to have another soild "saddle week" next week!