Week 4

Four hours of riding today, first climb up Lookout in a long time. Not fast (26:35) but steady and all Zone 3. Home by 11:30 if that gives you an idea how early I ride. Weekend rides can either be at a “reasonable hour” or long. I needed the hours so got out early. The weather was exceptionally nice so the early start was not a big deal. It was kind of a bummer though; I bought new polypropylene gloves yesterday for cold weather riding. I was thinking I’d at least get a little test time early today but no need for the cold weather gear.

Week 4 of training is now in the bag (not really yet, still need to do some yoga today). For the week I had a total of 10 hours of riding, and 2 hours of yoga. It being a recovery week on the schedule I’m happy with what I put in. I'm still working on aerobic fitness so no real hard work on the ride, which is actually harder than riding hard sometimes. Climbing at a pace slow enough to keep me in zone 3 takes some effort. Surprisingly though my time wasn’t much slower than an all out effort from previous years in December (only a handful of seconds slower than a December ride last year at a higher pace) so hopefully the work to build a good aerobic engine is paying off and I’ll get faster in the summer.