Holy Heat, Batman

Summer arrived on April 1st!  We have had a beautiful spring by anyone's standards but it has been exquisite by Rochester's standards.  This warm up took us into the mid-80s and we broke at least two high temperature records.  Anyway, it was great to get out on the roads with my bike and not be all bundled up.

Yesterday (Friday) I went out for a long ride in summer attire and it felt great.  Alex, who made my training plan, said that, on the trainer, I should ride an hour for every 15 miles; so if I had to do a 30 mile ride, I would ride for two hours.  Yesterday's plan called for a 40 mile ride which would mean I would ride for 2 hours 40 minutes on the trainer but since I was riding outside I decided to ride for the duration and not the distance- I rode out for an hour and twenty minutes (which took me to Albion) and then turned around and rode home.  On the way out I kept it in the small chain ring and  kept my heart rate at around 130, which is at the top of my zone 1 / bottom of zone 2, meaning it was an easy ride.  I averaged around 18 mph into a headwind and felt pretty good.  When I turned around and headed home, I shifted into my big chain ring but kept my heart rate and cadence the same as the first half.  This was the fun part of the ride because I was easily holding 23 mph and still felt great.  I ended up riding a bit over 54 miles and felt good.

I wasn't ready for the heat and only brought one water bottle, but didn't even end up finishing it, which I definitely should have done.  I ate a Powerbar, a banana, a few salt tablets, and an Ensure Plus.  Once home I could tell that I was a little dehydrated and it took a few hours to get enough fluids back in for me to feel back to normal; here is what I had: two glasses of Gatorade, one glass of protein shake mix, and 3 or 4 glasses of water.  I think the ride took a little bit more out of me that it should have (even though I felt strong the whole way) because of the heat but also because I did a hard 8 mile run the day before that included 30 minutes of hill repeats at my threshold heart rate.

I can't remember if I've explained threshold training, so here is a little... Everyone has a lactate threshold (LT) heart rate at which above they will produce more lactic acid than the body can process.  The lactic acid builds up and you feel the burn in your muscles which can't handle this for too long.  Below the LT the muscles process the lactic acid efficiently enough and even make energy out of the acid.  The trick is to continue to train so that you can do more work at your LT; this means you can go faster but use the same energy which means you are in better shape.  Challenging the body near or above the LT is a great way to build fitness but it must be done sparingly because it is an easy way to over train, burnout, and/or get injured.

Today I did an easy 12 mile run on legs that didn't exactly feel fresh at the beginning but I felt strong throughout.  My right hamstring is still tight but I'm hoping that I will be able to massage it out in the next few weeks.

Here is my training for the week. The left side is planned, the right side is actual.

Now for a rest day and major eating on Easter Sunday.  Happy Easter.