March Cycling Challenge 2014

15 minutes this morning. I'm at 135. More than half done

21.12 mi; 62 min spinning; avg watts 79; 289 kj
18.50 mi; 60 min spinning; avg watts 82; 277 kj
24.41 mi; 77 min spinning; avg watts 54; 255 kj (not my best class)
6.87 mi; 39.54 min; no watts; 235ish kj....first ride outside! Beautiful day to be outside in Colorado. Only crashed twice!
20.04 mi; 64 min spinning; avg watts 85; 305kj
22.02 mi; 67 min spinning; avg watts 72; kj 285 - got a Polar FT4 and it "claims" my calories burned were 585...but with such low watts, and an avg cadence of 85, could I have really burned that much? Seems unlikely. I won't have a Whopper today, just in case.

Only a small ride today as I had the dentist this morning, first ride of the year without a jacket :happy:
Count:
11 Activities
Distance:
174.72 mi
Time:
15:48:44 h:m:s
Elevation Gain:
3,249 ft
Avg Speed:
11.0 mph
Avg HR:
128 bpm
Calories:
13,556 C
Max Distance:
31.73 mi

March Target - 805km

1/3/2014 - no ride
2/3/2014 - http://app.strava.com/activities/117197010 72.0km
3/3/2014 - http://app.strava.com/activities/117469320 57.7km
4/3/2014 - no ride
5/3/2014 - http://app.strava.com/activities/117939394 30.8km
6/3/2014 - http://app.strava.com/activities/118200501 22.6km
7/3/2014 - no ride
8/3/2014 - http://app.strava.com/activities/118655468 61.7km
9/3/2014 - http://app.strava.com/activities/119044778 93.6km
10/3/2014 - http://app.strava.com/activities/119388172 43.0km
11/3/2014 - no ride
12/3/2014 - no ride
13/3/2014 - http://app.strava.com/activities/120266721 60.9km
14/3/2014 - http://app.strava.com/activities/120508987 62.8km
15/3/2014 -
16/3/2014 -
17/3/2014 -
18/3/2014 -
19/3/2014 -
20/3/2014 -
21/3/2014 -
22/3/2014 -
23/3/2014 -
24/3/2014 -
25/3/2014 -
26/3/2014 -
27/3/2014 -
28/3/2014 -
29/3/2014 -
30/3/2014 -
31/3/2014 -

Total - 505.1km

I was hoping to get a longer ride done today but had to return home to replace the chain, hopefully get a decent ride in over the weekend
Count:
13 Activities
Distance:
196.70 mi
Time:
17:38:08 h:m:s
Elevation Gain:
3,584 ft
Avg Speed:
11.2 mph
Avg HR:
127 bpm
Calories:
15,219 C
Max Distance:
31.73 mi

Hi,

I'm not sure if this is a good place to post or not, so if you have recommendations that this belongs in a different thread, please let me know.

I've recently started biking again. I have a mountain bike and am riding on a relatively flat trail right now. My goal is to advance eventually to more true mountain biking in a few months once I can get my endurance built up.

I'm only in my second week, but the past two times I've gone out, when I've started out riding my legs -- mainly in my quads, have felt very tired. I could understand feeling this tiredness at the end of a ride after giving a hard effort but am a little confused because now I'm feeling it when I start out. I took the last two days off completely from exercise to give my leg muscles a break. Today I felt the tiredness in my quads right away. I took down the tension to a 2 and shortened the ride to 20 minutes.

Anyone experience this? I'm not sure if its lactic acid built up or I just started out too fast and need to slow down my reintroduction to biking. It's been a good year since I've routinely exercised at all. Potassium -- do I need bananas? Build quad strength? All of the above?

Any and all advice is welcome, fine cycling people. Plan to join this challenge in April!

I'm only in my second week, but the past two times I've gone out, when I've started out riding my legs -- mainly in my quads, have felt very tired. I could understand feeling this tiredness at the end of a ride after giving a hard effort but am a little confused because now I'm feeling it when I start out. I took the last two days off completely from exercise to give my leg muscles a break. Today I felt the tiredness in my quads right away. I took down the tension to a 2 and shortened the ride to 20 minutes.

One thing to check is your position on the bike - Initially I'd say is your saddle in the correct place - both in height and in fore-aft location.

First Step, get the saddle height correct. Too low and you’ll feel cramped and put excessive strain on your knees. Too high and your hips will rock from side to side and potentially put strain on your lower back. With a friend holding the bike, sit on the saddle and place the balls of your feet on the pedals. With the pedal at the bottom of the pedal stroke (six o’clock), there should be a slight bend in your knee. You shouldn’t feel as though you are having to stretch but your leg should feel extended and not cramped.

Second - Saddle fore-af adjustment. if you are sitting too far back over the back wheel and behind the cranks then you are working the quads harder - normal approximation for the starting point in correct position of the saddle fore-aft is to position the saddle in a location that will put your knee over the pedal spindle when the cranks are horizontal (9 and 3 o'clock) - get on the bike, leaning against a wall, put the pedals in place at 9 and 3, feet on the pedals and drop a plumb-line from the front edge of your kneecap. If this drops behind the pedal spindle, move the saddle forward on its rails a little and re-measure. Don't move it more than 1/2" in either direction without a) checking saddle height is correct at this new location, and b) riding the bike for a while to see if it improves or makes things worse.

It's not a "carved in stone" rule - indeed there are more people who swear at it than by it these days, but it IS a decent starting point for people with "normal" leg lengths (and an average upper/lower leg length balance - some people have long thighs and short shins or vice-versa, which is where KOPS sort of falls down a bit)

Hi,

I'm not sure if this is a good place to post or not, so if you have recommendations that this belongs in a different thread, please let me know.

I've recently started biking again. I have a mountain bike and am riding on a relatively flat trail right now. My goal is to advance eventually to more true mountain biking in a few months once I can get my endurance built up.

I'm only in my second week, but the past two times I've gone out, when I've started out riding my legs -- mainly in my quads, have felt very tired. I could understand feeling this tiredness at the end of a ride after giving a hard effort but am a little confused because now I'm feeling it when I start out. I took the last two days off completely from exercise to give my leg muscles a break. Today I felt the tiredness in my quads right away. I took down the tension to a 2 and shortened the ride to 20 minutes.

Anyone experience this? I'm not sure if its lactic acid built up or I just started out too fast and need to slow down my reintroduction to biking. It's been a good year since I've routinely exercised at all. Potassium -- do I need bananas? Build quad strength? All of the above?

Any and all advice is welcome, fine cycling people. Plan to join this challenge in April!

It sounds like you are on a spin bike. Try going longer at a lower resistance. Spin your legs as fast as you can until your hips are rocking and then back it off10-20 rpm. Do this 1-2 minutes at a time with slower spinning for 2-3 minutes between sets. Cycling is a cardiovascular activity not a leg strength activity. Leg strength will increase over time. Some muscle pain is to be expected with any new activity. Spinning faster to get the heart rate up increases blood flow which clears your muscles of waste from doing work. Rest is just as important as effort. You need to make sure you give your muscles time to heal between workouts.

BTW month to date 210 miles, will get over 30 more today.

3/1 - 1.2 miles.
3/2 - 1.7 miles.
3/8 - 1.9 miles.
3/9 - 2.8 miles in little bits between chores.
3/10 - 2.0 miles.
3/11 - 2.4 miles.
3/15 - 2.5 miles. Building my speed back up a little. 9.5mph average today. Last year, my max was about 11.5mph average (and rarely got that fast). I'm happy with anything over 10.1mph.



MTD = 14.5 miles.

3/1 - 1.2 miles.
3/2 - 1.7 miles.
3/8 - 1.9 miles.
3/9 - 2.8 miles in little bits between chores.
3/10 - 2.0 miles.
3/11 - 2.4 miles.
3/15 - 2.5 miles. Building my speed back up a little. 9.5mph average today. Last year, my max was about 11.5mph average (and rarely got that fast). I'm happy with anything over 10.1mph.
3/15 - 1.9 miles for my second trip out today and got it to 9.9mph average.



MTD = 16.4 miles.

Raced the Southern Oregon Time Trial #2 today - shorter course but more elevation gain than last week.

Warmup:

Distance 10.3 mi (Funny how the Garmin 510 shows distance when I was on the trainer!)
Moving Time 45:18
Avg Speed 13.9 mi/h
Avg Watts 134 W
Elev Gain 0 ft

Race:

Distance 7.9 mi
Moving Time 28:02
Avg Speed 16.9 mi/h
Avg Watts 225 W
Elev Gain 741 ft

Worked very hard, had fun and did not come in last in my age group. Yea!

Southern Oregon TT #3 Recon:

Distance 9.4 mi
Moving Time 42:42
Avg Speed 13.1 mi/h
Avg Watts 134 W
Elev Gain 1,066 ft

I rode only a portion on the course. Next week will be harder than the first two weeks combined. Thankfully, there are only 3 races in the series.

So far....
01/03 - 38.1km
02/03 - 16.4km
11/03 - 32.1km
14/03 - 12.2km
16/03 - 18.3km

Total so far - 117.1km (72.7miles)
Goal this month is 300km (186miles)

3/1 - 1.2 miles.
3/2 - 1.7 miles.
3/8 - 1.9 miles.
3/9 - 2.8 miles in little bits between chores.
3/10 - 2.0 miles.
3/11 - 2.4 miles.
3/15 - 2.5 miles. Building my speed back up a little. 9.5mph average today. Last year, my max was about 11.5mph average (and rarely got that fast). I'm happy with anything over 10.1mph.
3/15 - 1.9 miles for my second trip out today and got it to 9.9mph average.
3/16 - 2.7 miles.



MTD = 19.1 miles.

Easy effort in the hills with wind. No rain, but tomorrow looks wet which is fine as tomorrow is a rest day.

Distance 38.2 mi
Moving Time 3:24:31
Avg Speed 11.2 mi/h
Avg Watts 120 W
Elev Gain 3,697 ft

March total is now 310.8 miles.