It was cold and foggy this morning so I thought I’d be relegated to the rollers again. So I went to Yoga first thing and stopped by Big City Coffee & Cafe on the way home to pick-up some Sunrise muffins.Yummy!
It cleared up by mid-day so I called Ted and asked if he wanted to join me for a ride. He said he would if he had a bike since his was at shop. Since we ride the same frame size I offered my Trek race bike and he graciously accepted.
We met up at 2 PM at my house and by then it was sunny but still humid and a bit nippy out…at least for a weather wimp like myself! We chatted on the way out to Hillsdale where planned to do a loop then come back. On the way out, Ted asked me if my handlebars were always crooked or if they were they loose? I said I didn’t know, so we stopped to confirm. Good thing we did! The stem bolts were completely loose! I guess with all the stemp switching I did last fall, I never got around to making sure my Trek was rideable. I’m pretty much on my Kestrel all winter long. Well that was an accident waiting to happen! So I tightened the stem and we continued west on Floating Feather.
When we got to Hillsdale, I told Ted I wanted to do a 1-minute test on a the Can Ada hill. He agreed to join me so we picked it up as we meandered though the neighborhood to get the legs primed. I pointed out the mailbox which marks the beginning of my testing “zone”. Ted hit it first and started up pretty fast. But once I passed the mailbox and stood up, I managed to maintain the same gap all the way up. By the time 40 seconds hit I was fading pretty bad but I could see Ted slow down a lot. He didn’t have a timer which really helps in these tests. The last 10 seconds are always the worst!
I did catch Ted but that was after he had essentially stopped his effort, but overall he covered about the same distance as I did. Since we’re both about the same weight, we can assume he achieved about the same power. I ended up hitting 637 Watts! That’s my second best 1-minute power, second only to the 667 I hit last October!
I had always wondered if that October number wasn’t just a fluke because prior to that my best was only around 600 watts. But getting within 30 watts of that little high-end training, then the 667 doesn’t seem that unrealistic. I think a goal of 700 is doable.
On the way back we did a sprint and then met up with A. Davis on Beacon Light Rd. He seemed to be hammering because Ted and I had to haul to catch him. Once we caught him, the three of us rode easy and chatted on the way home. It was nice to be on the road again and I’m excited about my power numbers considering how little I’ve been training. Just last week I was happy to put in a total of six hours on the bike. During my sabbatical I was doing more like 16 hours at this point! So there’s hope for me now that I have limited time to train. I just need to keep focusing on training smart with plenty of recovery.