Epic Cycle

After yesterday's battle with the wind I went out again.
No rest for the wicked I guess.

Today, its a SSW wind at only 10mph. According to the map, this would be more of a help, at least compared to yesterday.

And it was, to an extent.

I managed more like my 15mph average, with yesterday's bad stretch done 50s quicker than yesterday, but still 30s slower than my target time.

The wind from the south was nice for the last few km, as I got a good head of steam up. I blasted past another guy on a slicker bike too and felt good until he caught and passed me on the run up to the train station. But then between him and his bike, I guess he was about 30kg lighter...

One of the features of MapMyRide where I upload my stats is that I have set up a few courses along the route so I can compare my times to anyone else doing that particular section. With today's tail wind I was keen to see how I did on the NE stretch.

To my annoyance the website refused to accept that the cycle was part of any of my courses.

For some bizarre reason this morning cycle seems to have recorded me turning left instead of right at the royal Troon Golf Course and then continuing south until I reached a point about 50km north of Algiers in Algeria. I then turned North and headed to a point just outside Galashiels before heading back to Troon and resuming my cycle. All this in a quicker time than yesterday.

Don't know why it did this. A quick Google search suggests solar flares interfering with GPS signal. Perhaps that Indian mission to Mars is in more difficulty than the news has reported.

Really Annoying wind

Any one willing to guess at what time I was out on my bike today?

This is a screen grab from weather underground for the wind speed for Prestwick Airport, and hence the Troon area.

If you guessed 11:30, when the wind speed decided to suddenly reverse trend and increase with the 40mph gusts, give yourself 10 points.

Funny, the only gust recorded is the one that almost blew me off the bike.

And you never get as much assistance from the wind as you get hindrance.

I pace myself at about 15mph (2:30 for 1km) since I had managed to hit this level back in July. I then keep a running total of how much above or below that total I am each km. (It distracts me from laboured breathing.)

Today I was 7s short of 4 minutes for a km along the sea front, with that 25mph headwind. This was 80s slower than my target time. In order to recover this time I would have to be 80s faster on the next km, which means over 30mph. More realistically, and without worrying about flashing blue lights, it means each following km being faster than the 2:30 target, so I can reduce the deficit. But thats only for 1km, what about the others?

But its not that easy.
You have to go faster to recover the lost time. So, you would think that by averaging 15mph I could do a set of 14mph, 15mph and 16mph, but that would still leave me with a deficit. I would actually have to do 14,15 and 16.2 to make up the loss. It gets worse as the difference builds.

So, today was a slow time for me. Almost 2:30 slower than my target. Or almost a km less in the same time. Kills my month's stats too.

October Review

After September's poor performance in reducing my weight I think I have done better this month.

At least, I have logged more weigh-ins on my graph than last month which shows I am taking this seriously again.

I have dropped 2kg this month so it seems to be paying off. I'm still way off the original targets set in January when I started all this. I never thought they would be realistic but felt keeping an eye on them would be good, as a way of focussing. Especially at the start when I was doing better than the target predicted.

The exercise is continuing, but fewer gym visits in October as I ran down that membership. It finally cancelled on Halloween.

I have been more determined with my lunchtime cycles. Sadly, the nasty weather has played havoc with me. Its been quite windy out there this month with some nasty winds. I have been generally dry though. I only got really wet once - wet enough that I couldn't see out of my glasses and couldn't hear with my helmet on. The wind was picking up drops of rain and sea and blasting them at me.

My route is a loop but its not symmetric. The return portion is much more exposed as it runs along the shore line. The site I use to log my cycle data recorded wind speeds at 17mph W on my slowest day. That blows like a gale off the water. A south west wind should be helpful, but the more westerly it is is the harder it seems. One day was logged as 0mph wind. That saw me finish in just 27:54. This is only 39s slower than my fastest time yet, with had an 8mph due South wind. To me, this shows that I am slowed more by the wind than helped. Which makes a bit of sense if you consider that sitting upright, holding the handlebars, makes a pocket for the wind to catch in.

My increasing my lunchtime cycles has been offset by Fiona's curling so there were fewer weekend cycles or walks. Calorie burn is down, but that is tied to the 5 hours less actual exercise. Swings and roundabouts I guess. I am fitter though. At least that my interpretation of the reducing average heart rate for these cycles. And I feel better too.

Plans for this month? I need to keep focussed. We're off to Stranraer this weekend 'curling' so I'll need to watch the food intake. The end of the month the new job starts. That will mean less time for exercise and more time in restaurants and travelling, so I'll have to be careful