Wednesday, 11 June 2008

New Intervals: passing the magic 50 km/h

Up at 5:30 this morning and out on the Dreadnaught onto the Eastern Parkway to do some lactate threshold intervals. This consisted of a 25 minute warm-up, followed by alternating 2 minute runs at heart rates of 148 bpms and then 162 bpms, while trying to keep up a cadence of 85-100 rpm. The cadence part was the hardest to manage, although I could feel those high-end sections after a while.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous, with almost no humidity and temperatures around 22C when I left the house. I passed lots of commuters riding in to work. The heart rate monitor worked perfectly today and I felt really in tune with the ride. There was very little wind and when I did a brief sprint to bring my HR up to the required level, I looked down to see that I was riding at nearly 51 km/h. The workout was not as painful as the other interval training I have done, although it really did go on for a full 20 minutes.

After a gentler half hour spent recovering, I rolled home and had a delicious smoothie for breakfast, followed by a most excellent in-the-cycling-tradition double espresso. Then it was off to work on the next bicycle and the perfect day so far was made even better when I figured out that the annoying creaking sound when riding BlackAdder came from the right pedal; a shot of ProLink and we were silent and swift again.

3 comments:

Will said...

I rarely even do 50 kmh on the descents! :)

Sounds like the training is really progressing

Anonymous said...

Smoothie and espresso. 2nd best way to start the morning. The 1st is to do a ride beforehand

Donald said...

Feeling the burn... 50kmh. NICE! And don't you love the feeling of silencing a creak... almost as good as the double espresso!