Strong Sunday Spin

All during the crappy weather I wanted to be riding outside. And then when a pretty nice day comes along, I had a really strong urge for a disciplined workout in the basement. Plus other things going on made an outside ride a bit of a difficult thing. However, I was rewarded with an excellent spin session! It's much the same as last Sunday. (oh, and my massage therapist just came in, and said it had been really windy where I was planning to ride so maybe it's all just as well.)

10 min warmup
10 min one leg drill, with a 30 second acceleration
16 x 7 upper zone 2, 3 lower zone 2, alternating between high and low rpm
2:30 transition
24 min run
6 min strong walk to cool down and relax the legs
3:30 total, plus another 10 or 15 min stretching legs, plus another hour or so massage.

I'm pretty sure the top of zone two has shifted up about half a dozen bpm since I started formal training. This ride I pushed much harder to be for sure at the top of zone 2, and sometimes into the bottom of zone 3. For the low rpm sets, I was in the hardest 3 gears, and stood up for a good chunk of the 7 min set, standing longer as the ride continued. For the high rpm sets, I was trying to maintain a minimum of 95 rpm, and aiming for 100, and most of this was in the second or third easiest gears.

I felt strong and steady throughout the ride. My calves didn't bug me at all. Perhaps that's because I made a real effort to stay hydrated, drinking more than I normally do, and making up a batch of my energy drink. I was much better at staying focused on maintaining a particular rpm and keeping heart rate up. Plus the rocking tunes on the ipod!

The run went pretty good. I could feel my calves a little bit, not complaining, but beginning to compose a note of complaint. I slugged down the last of the energy drink during the run. My lets were doing what they told me was a typical pace for me, and they weren't far off once I looked at the stopwatch, but my heartbeat was way higher for that pace, another 10 bpm or so. I guess that's a consequence of running off the bike. I slowed down a little bit at the end of the first K, and got my heart rate down to about 127, but it was soon up again. During the 24 minute run I probably went a little under 3K.

Now that's it's a little after the workout, I can feel my legs being tired, and also core muscles. I could feel how much I was working them during the spin session to stay smooth. For some short bursts, I was up to 115 rpm or so just to give my legs a break and see if I could stay smooth.

Here's some numbers for IG:
Overall average hr 115
peak 137
min 67
total calories 2797 (so I have no shame about the banana smeared with peanut butter and nutella)
average hr during bike segment 114
average hr during transition 100
First K 8 m, average hr 127
Second K 7:27 average hr 130
last run segment, perhaps .75 K, 6 min, average heart rate 130
walk segment, 6 min, average hr 112.

Weekly total
Swim 1.25 hr, (not counting the Wed debacle)
Bike 5.8 hr
Run 2.75 hr
Total 9.8 (and if I'd known I'd be 12 minutes short of 10 hours, I'd have put the time in somewhere. Too late. Sigh.)