by Jack Hughes » 04 Jun 2012 13:18
Don't you just like it when a plan comes together.
It is said that you should always have objectives for every session, and, thank's to Strava, it was easy to set them for this one.
I've switched focus from longer rides to shorter, more intense ones. Mainly to try to get over the knee problems on the bike. Having fiddled with cleat positions, and mainly doing around 1 hour rides, the time had come for a 2 hour go, again, to press it and see what would happen.
I've taken advantage of the long weekend to try to put a serious of quite hard (but short) efforts in. All based around the motivation of getting some "King of the Mountain" achievements on Strava, on both bike and run. I wimped out on Sunday; awful weather, and legs rather too achy from Friday's and Saturday's efforts. Went for a swim and a session in the gym. This went well, but I did aggravate the knee a bit by pushing too much on the leg press. Tut Tut.
Anyway, having had a look over some possible routes, I settled on a nice one. Some great (and popular) strava segments - no chance of getting a KoM in those - ridden by decent pro/amateur road racing cyclists, these - but there were three decent climbs. So the objective was to get PRs on each of these. The first one I've only ridden once before, so that was easy, but the others I've done many times before. So this would be both a good test of the knee, and a good test of fitness.
Anyway, with these objectives in mind, I set off. The only fly in the ointment (apart from the cold weather) was that the power meter packed in, just at the start of the first climb. Assume the battery is flat. Not to worry, this was about times, not about power, so more the hassle of getting it working again.
First climb: this is just up to the top of the first steep section of a climb. The road turns into some rough stuff, and another section which has just been covered in shingles, so wasn't going to push it on there. Terrific views of course. This short section is about 1.8km long, rising gently at first from 202m, till it peaks at 354m - a Cat 4 climb on Strava. The hill climbs on up to about 427m for a Cat 3 climb, but I wasn't pushing this bit.
Result was a time of 9:21, moving me into 2nd place on the leader board. Previous best was 10:34, so pleased with that. HR peaked at 152, so was working quite hard, for me (Max on the bike is around 158-162 for me).
Second Climb: This is the big one. On route, I discovered a very wicked on, which means doing that section in the opposite direction. Might see about that tomorrow. This is up a (reasonably quite) main road - from Hebden Bridge over to Oxenhope. This starts at about 87m and rises continuously for 6.8km to a height of 419m. This ranks it as a Cat 2 climb on Strava! The gradients are gradual - 8% for a lot of it, so the objective was to try to hit a cadence of about 80-85. Very pleased to get a PR on this one. It's a serious climb, because it took me 27m:50s. That's nearly half an hour of continuous ascent! Nice. This, being on the main road, is a very popular one. So my time was only good enough for 40th place. Kom is some 10 mins quicker. Still, my time was 10 mins quicker than the slowest I've done it! HR was at about 134 all the way through. This climb requires a steady effort.
Third Climb: This was the crunch, as the legs were doubly tired now. So very pleased to get a PR on this one. It feels flat compared to the previous climb, starting at 196m and rising to 290m. Again, the summit is a bit further off, but my way takes a turning before you get to the last bit. The climb is 1.6km, so ranks as a Cat 4 on Strava. Took me 05:59, a PR by a handful of seconds. Pleased with that! HR was 140bpm. Again, it's a steady effort.
Knee held up pretty well, although they did get rather cold.
Pleased with that - managed to stick to the plan - and made the objectives. Feeling a bit fitter too.
Omnia Vanitas
Immortal (for a limited tme).