Three Hours Riding, Mostly Standing

I headed north through the Coyote Valley on Santa Teresa Boulevard towards San Jose today. It was a beautiful day with a slight breeze from the south (south-southwest, to be precise), the weather report predicted about 7 mph. So I tried to account for that by turning around a little sooner. I’m building up my standing pedaling stamina again, which feels good. I turned around after about 15 miles in a little over an hour, and faced a brutal headwind going back. It sure felt like a lot more than 7 mph, and at times was gusting a lot harder. I made the same mistake last Saturday too. When will I learn? If you’re commuting or doing an errand you don’t have a choice, but these were recreational rides. Head out into the wind, so you’ll have a tailwind going home! I still got home on time, but had to work harder. Here’s my heart rate data, you can see I was working harder going home. Nevertheless, it was still a good pace, this was supposed to be a relatively easy day so I wanted HR to average under 120 and not exceed 120 too often. This shows a 2 hour 20 minute ride, I cooled down with a 40 minute easy spin indoors after.

I also felt good because I set a new personal record for heart rate variability of 49, which means I’m recovering well from training.

Here’s some of the nice early spring scenery I was riding in, a field of mustard grass under an orchard, with the green foothills in the background: