Show us your.......newbie progress! [4 Sep 2012 - 4 Oct 2014]

[Ciar]

Not sure where in East London you are but I've been out with a friend from Ilford a couple of times and there are some lovely quiet lanes around Abridge/Ongar, all not a million miles from Epping.

based in south woodford, originally from Ilford myself, as for surrounding area really don't know it that well to ride, most of my friends i ride with are MTB riders, so we do trails in and around chingford right out to epping, I would just love to grab my cx hybrid and pootle out on the quiet country roads, as I have never tried that.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Confession time:

I just didn't feel like it today so I didn't.

Shameful!

Tomorrow though, I will be at it again, but tonight I am going to watch footy, drink Cider and snuggle up to Lovely Wife on the whopping great big new sofa that arrived the other day. Lovely!

Take it easy everyone.

 

[RWright]

After my speed question the other day, I thought if I can average 23kph over 53k, I should be able to go quicker over a shorted distance and so I came up with this:

http://app.strava.com/activities/62805250

An average of 25.5kph and although only slighter longer by about 100 meters, it was 10 minutes quicker than the same route last week. Although I thought I gave it the beans on one uphill segment but only ended up with a PB by 1 second I did also overtake three people, admittedly they were a mum and two kids but we've all got to start somewhere. Although a cyclist did pull out of a junction about 50 meters ahead of me and I was catching him in places until we went different ways.

As I got a free trial of Strava, I put in my max heart rate (220 - age) and I apparently spent 69% of the time at threshold, 26% at tempo and 6% at anaerobic leaving 1% at moderate. Considering my max HR (192bpm) was apparently higher than the calculated version, can that be right?

I am just recently starting to look closer at max heart rates and training. I think the 220 - age is a general guide. A trained athlete or someone that works out might have a higher max rate. Conversely, someone that is terribly out of shape could be lower. That ride looks like you were pushing it pretty hard but not knowing anything about your age or physical condition it is hard to tell. People in the health, fitness and training section of the forums get into some pretty detailed discussions about it. I would look around there or even ask in a new thread there. There are also a lot of web sites that discuss it. Just don't overdo it.

 

[Supersuperleeds]

Confession time:

I just didn't feel like it today so I didn't.

Shameful!

Tomorrow though, I will be at it again, but tonight I am going to watch footy, drink Cider and snuggle up to Lovely Wife on the whopping great big new sofa that arrived the other day. Lovely!

Take it easy everyone.

Must admit when I came out of work tonight I didn't fancy a long ride home, ended up doing just shy of 23 miles

 

[MaxInc]

Didn't feel like it neither but since I couldn't go out yesterday due to work commitments, didn't want to leave too much gap It was ok in the end but missing the excitement felt a bit boring. At least I got the 500k badge and I can sleep better tonight.

 

[AndyPeace]

As I got a free trial of Strava, I put in my max heart rate (220 - age) and I apparently spent 69% of the time at threshold, 26% at tempo and 6% at anaerobic leaving 1% at moderate. Considering my max HR (192bpm) was apparently higher than the calculated version, can that be right?

Heart rates are personal things. The 220 - age equation is a very rough guess at what your highest rate is. I don't know a great deal about sport science but use my highest recorded heart rate as my maximum and record my resting heart rate first thing in the morning. I have only just started trying out very basic heart rate based training but it does add an extra element to rides.

 

[Mo1959]

Must admit when I came out of work tonight I didn't fancy a long ride home, ended up doing just shy of 23 miles

Must be something in the air. Felt really heavy and lethargic today, even walking the dog this afternoon. No point in forcing it when you don't feel like it.

 

[Supersuperleeds]

Must be something in the air. Felt really heavy and lethargic today, even walking the dog this afternoon. No point in forcing it when you don't feel like it.

I am having to force it, set myself a stupid target this week.

I decided on Monday to try and get to 10,000km before the end of the week, I was 411km (256 miles) short before I set off on Monday and have now got it down to 134km (84 miles)

 

[stevey]

Must be something in the air. Felt really heavy and lethargic today

Very much day off today and had chinese

 

[RWright]

Very much day off today and had chinese

I just did an easy spin on my 16 mile track in a decent breeze, I am just going to do a 3 mile walk later I think, unless I get antsy and want to ride a little more. I am going to take it easy a few days(keep it under 30 miles) and get ready to Take on the Tour! That one is not going to leave a lot of time for resting. I had Chinese too.

I will be probably be hungry again in a little while.

 

[DaveyM]

after a month off (back injury) I finally got back out and found the stretch to ride on the drops a bit too much really, but felt okay on the hoods. I felt like I had never ridden a bike in a year - fitness was way down.
Add to this 5 weeks till the Coast to Coast.

well done you guys.

 

[madferret]

Managed to shake off mild hangover and get out in the afternoon, had stupidly set myself a 40 mile target.......

Bad route and forgetting my gloves meant that I wasn't happy at all for first few miles, could have done with an MTB. But was OK after that apart from sore knees, which turned out to be because my saddle had slipped and was in lowest position! Took me 20 miles to realise that.........

First part of ride -
http://app.strava.com/activities/63051298
Quick pint in Lymm then

http://app.strava.com/activities/63051290

Annoyingly, battery on phone went so had to replace it for next leg......

http://app.strava.com/activities/63051279

Finally got home to discover that I was half a mile short, after a small debate with myself, went and did a cooldown of 1.5 mile to take me to 41 for the day......was pretty chuffed and still buzzing now

This probably best ignored, but I like to refer back at a later date so for completeness sake......

http://app.strava.com/activities/63051264

Well done everyone who got out and those that didn't hope you enjoyed the rest (or chinese, which has got me thinking.....)

 

[stu9000]

Its amazing how quickly things improve. I'm commuting to work 12m each way with a few hills of merit (at least in my view). The first time I did it in felt I'd climbed Everest. Just two weeks later and I'm doing it on consecutive days. I'm not setting myself crazy speed targets as i can feel im getting a proper workout. And I'm not afraid to get off and walk an the deadly marlpit lane stretch. But I'm getting off a few yards further up each time. Gawd knows how I'll do in the London 100 but I'm absolutely loving the training

 

[Nomadski]

Must be something in the air. Felt really heavy and lethargic today, even walking the dog this afternoon. No point in forcing it when you don't feel like it.

I felt lethargic on my ride today too Mo, just felt it wasn't happening at all.

I just did an easy spin on my 16 mile track in a decent breeze, I am just going to do a 3 mile walk later I think, unless I get antsy and want to ride a little more. I am going to take it easy a few days and get ready to Take on the Tour! That one is not going to leave a lot of time for resting. I had Chinese too.

I will be probably be hungry again in a little while.

Count me as thirdsies on the Chinese takeaway! Chicken fried rice, curry sauce and a giant spring roll! Well I liked it anyway.

Managed to shake off mild hangover and get out in the afternoon, had stupidly set myself a 40 mile target.......

Bad route and forgetting my gloves meant that I wasn't happy at all for first few miles, could have done with an MTB. But was OK after that apart from sore knees, which turned out to be because my saddle had slipped and was in lowest position! Took me 20 miles to realise that.........

First part of ride -
http://app.strava.com/activities/63051298
Quick pint in Lymm then

http://app.strava.com/activities/63051290

Annoyingly, battery on phone went so had to replace it for next leg......

http://app.strava.com/activities/63051279

Finally got home to discover that I was half a mile short, after a small debate with myself, went and did a cooldown of 1.5 mile to take me to 41 for the day......was pretty chuffed and still buzzing now

This probably best ignored, but I like to refer back at a later date so for completeness sake......

http://app.strava.com/activities/63051264

Well done everyone who got out and those that didn't hope you enjoyed the rest (or chinese, which has got me thinking.....)

The saddle slippage has happened to me before too, quite comedic really when you realise! Well done on the ride too.

Its amazing how quickly things improve. I'm commuting to work 12m each way with a few hills of merit (at least in my view). The first time I did it in felt I'd climbed Everest. Just two weeks later and I'm doing it on consecutive days. I'm not setting myself crazy speed targets as i can feel im getting a proper workout. And I'm not afraid to get off and walk an the deadly marlpit lane stretch. But I'm getting off a few yards further up each time. Gawd knows how I'll do in the London 100 but I'm absolutely loving the training

Well done on your progress, as they say it never gets easy, you just go faster! Those hills will be like pancakes soon, just slightly lumpy pancakes you probably wouldn't want to eat.

 

[stevey]

Well done everyone who got out and those that didn't hope you enjoyed the rest (or chinese, which has got me thinking.....)

Chinese didn't hit the spot, wanted to get out on bike but legs were having none of it.