TEMPO RIDING

71 kms | 2 h 22 m | avg speed 30.5 km/h | avg heart rate 152 bpm

As next Friday I will be facing the Mont Ventoux during the Tour du ALS challenge I’ve decided to do a tempo riding today. Short and pushy against a good wind on top of the dike on a great weather: sunny and warm. What a year! The turning point today was Schoonhoven, another Dutch gem that you find in the riding in this country.

Como na próxima sexta-feira eu vou estar enfrentando o Mont Ventoux como parte do Tour du ALS, eu decidi fazer um treino curto e de ritmo. Curto de duro, empurrando forte os pedais contra o vento. Um dia perfeito de sol e calor! Hoje o ponto de retorno foi Schoonhoven, outra gema holandeza que se encontra ao treinar nesse país.

Today I left home spot on at noon. Had an appointment to play football with my daughter and that took priority over cycling. It was 18 degrees and the wind was mid to strong. Once again I took the direction of the dike over the river Lek. But this time I went to the other side, on the direction of Lopik and Schoonhoven. I wanted to get the headwind in the first half of the ride and tail wind in the return, but all I got was cross wind both ways… typical.

Lekdijk Oost

The first 10 to 12 kms before I got to the dike were a little slow because of the big number of families on the cycle paths. I don’t like risk an accident. And I also stop on red traffic lights, unlike many cyclists. Once on the dike I kept the heart rate between 155 and 160, sometimes going over it. For the next 40 minutes the speed stayed around 33 to 35 km/h. Felt very good.
I turned around and got the crosswind this time from the right side. And as they say that every cyclist is a bit or a sailor, although it was still crosswind it was slightly angled and I could take advantage of it. For the same effort, I managed to keep the speed between 35 and 38 km/h all the way back home as the road alongside the Amsterdamrijkanaal was empty.
A short but good training with average speed of 30.5 km/h due to the slow downs at the beginning and the climbing of the bridge in Vianen that goes to 5% inclination.
THE WEEK – the week training was made out of a 40 minutes recovery training on the spinning bike on Monday, a commuting to work with interval training (3 x 8 minutes) on Tuesday and one hour interval training (again 3 x 8 min) on the road on Friday. The interval training on the road is actually a good one. Managed a average speed of 31.9 km/h even with the slowdown at the end. During the interval the speed stayed between 36 and 38 km/h even with head wind.
This week I will do another interval on Monday. Tuesday is rest. Wednesday is travel and a short ride at the end of the day just to the top of Ventoux and Thursday is rest again. Friday is the ride up Ventoux 3 times. See in the link below how the ride was last year:
http://wasgs.blogspot.de/2013/06/ventoux-3-times-mission-accomplished.html

And here what it is actually the challenge:
http://www.stop-als.blogspot.de/2013/04/the-challenge-mont-ventoux.html