Today is my scheduled rest day, so my October riding is done.

This year, I rode 519 miles and trained for 39 hours. I’m happy with that.

Last year was more intense – 662 miles with 49 training hours. I must be getting old.

Tonight, I rode to “The Hunted” by Sufferfest. This vid is an hour long and contains a 20 minute climb with surges. Then, you get to do five, increasing sprints. The first is 10 seconds long with a 50 second recovery, the next is 20 seconds long with a 40 second recovery. This goes on until the fifth and final sprint is 50 seconds long after just a 10 second recovery.

The graphic reflects my effort. The blue line is speed, the purple line is power and the red line is heart rate. My heart rate at the beginning was 129 and it peaked at 160 bpm.

It was fun.

After my trainer session, I did my core exercises.

I’m having work done on my car in Gresham. If the part comes in before this weekend, I will have the work done on Saturday and ride Larch Mountain while the car is being repaired.

Just four of us out tonight – Jim, Jean, Joanne and Me (John).  A warm and dry night where good riding was had.

A Monday in late October and no rain.  Let’s go for a ride!

I intended to ride at a zone 3 pace but I fell a bit short.  I was in zone 3 for 14:32 but in zone 2 for 25:46.  I guess I should have worked harder.

My training plan for the upcoming week:

On Monday, I will do my noontime walk, and then a short zone 3 night ride after work.

On Tuesday, the rain returns so I will do a workout on the trainer with core afterwards.

Wednesday is our regularly scheduled Salem Bicycle Club night ride. Last week the rain was so heavy, no one showed up. I hope this week is different. I hope my noontime walk will be dry.

Thursday is another night on the trainer with core afterward.

Friday is a scheduled cycling rest day but I will do my noontime walk.

Saturday, the Club is doing a southern 50 mile route that would be about 65 miles from my home.

Sunday, Joanne is leading a hilly club ride to the west. Including the the ride in from home, we are looking at another sixty plus ride.

Yesterday’s longish ride in the wind storm dictated an easy recovery ride.

However, the wind was still blowing and I did have to work a bit harder than I wanted to. At least I thought I was working hard. This was a two thirds zone 2 ride and one third zone 1 ride. Exactly what I wanted.

We headed headed north to Donald and the wind was behind us.  Really behind us.  We were doing 20 mph easy without effort.  We knew it would be different coming back south.

We were right.

The forecast was for 60 mph gusts from the south.  I know we felt at least one 50 mph gust.  The riding was hard, but it was a direct headwind so all we had to do was hunker down and peddle.

Joanne was ahead of me and was fighting the wind on 99E when Mike and Grace drove by in their van.  They stopped and offered a ride to her and she was pleased to climb in.  They dropped her off at home and she immediately went out in our van to rescue riders.  Soon our van was full and after dropping off those thankful riders, she went out for another pass.

I meanwhile took the most direct path home and made it in before she found me.

In the graph above, you can see how much the wind affected my speed.  The spikes in the second haft of the ride were because the road turned to the north for a short ways.

I will be joining a small group of friends on an overnight pack down ride on the Oregon Coast this weekend.  So, I broke out the touring bike, my Trek 520, and rode it on the SBC Wednesday Night Ride.  Other than being a slug, I am very happy with it.  The tires held air.  The bike shifted gears.  The brakes slowed me down.  And I detected no rattles.  Looks like I am going to have fun!

Mon, Oct 13, 2014 5:38 PM
Trainer – Downward Spiral (Short)
First indoor ride of the season mostly to dial in Golden Cheetah real time train mode.

Distance: 7.5 mi
Moving Time: 29:52
Avg Speed: 15.1 mi/h
Avg Watts: 157 W