After falling asleep on the couch for 30 minutes after work I finally dragged myself out the door a ride yesterday evening. The plan was 2h with 2x(10min Zn4 + 30min Zn3). I rolled on over to Redstone Arsenal (the place where I work and also do the bulk of my midweek riding) and after a 20min warmup started hitting it hard. As usual, the pain commenced right away. I pushed hard through the first 10 minutes, watching the PT to keep me honest. Once the 10 minutes of pain was over, I dropped down into what I thought was Zn3, only to find my PE meter and PT werent exactly matching up. Although I felt as though I was riding in low Zn4, the PT was displaying numbers more indicative low Zn3.
At first I dismissed this as just fatigue. I had had a pretty hard ride Sunday and was back on the TT bike again today (instead of Tuesday Night Worlds... more on that in a minute) and I had finally been putting in some solid, consistent, training, so maybe it was catching up to me? Finally though after struggling just to just barely keep the power at a Zn3 level, I decided to pause for a few seconds to zero the torque, just in case. Sure enough, the torque was reading negative, indicating I had been working harder than the PT was displaying. With the torque zeroed, my power increased 40-50 Watts at the same PE.
Initially, this was great as I felt like I had turned into a tailwind. Later in the ride, though, the additional intensity really started to catch up to me, making the last part of the 2nd Zn3 effort pretty painful. In the end I got a really good workout but thats also the worst part about it... I wont get any credit for it! So, the moral of the story... always zero the PT!
In other news, congratulations are in order for Will Ronco who will (if all goes according to plan) be getting hitched this weekend. I'll be traveling to Boulder for the occasion and am looking forward to the trip for a number of reasons. Aside from the wedding, this will be my first trip to the place where all the cool kids (including about half of Team Timex) live so it should be a fun trip. I'll also be navigating airport security with a skinny, socially inept, Portugese man so that, in and of itself, should be entertaining. And finally, they have Chipotle in Boulder... I cant wait!
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