Saturday, August 18, 2001

Fitness Update - 198.5 lbs

I was a very good boy today; I got up this morning and went for a long ride on the York County rail trail. Overall I did pretty good considering that I haven't been in a few weeks (due to work, storms, heat). Since I haven't been in a few weeks, I stopped at Hanover Junction on both legs for about 15 minutes, and spent about 30 minutes at the Railroad turn-around point in order to eat a sandwich and get rehydrated. So I went 33 miles in about 3.5 hrs, but my actual on-bike time was only 2hrs 38min (12.53mph, but 11 min over my target speed of 13.50mph). I estimate that I expended about 1650 kCal during the ride, while ingesting about 700 kCal (3 24oz gatorade bottles, honey on whole wheat bread sandwich at turn around), that means that I expended 160% of my normal activity level (which is around 2200 kCal per day for my weight and normal activity levels). I spent almost the entire ride in the 160-175 bpm heart-rate range (the caffeine from my morning cup of coffee that I should've cut back to 1/3 made it difficult to keep below 175 bpm).

Normally, I just go from Richland Ave down to Glen Rock and then come back (27 mi round-trip), but since I had the extra time today I pressed on towards Railroad. Now the Richland Ave to Glen Rock section of the rail trail is essentially flat with no major up/down segments, but from Glen Rock to Railroad you ascend about 220 ft in 3 miles (which feels like a pretty good grade after you've already been riding for a hour). My normal goal is to reach Glen Rock at around 60 minutes and today I reached it in 63 minutes. To give you an idea of the rise between Glen Rock and Railroad, it took me 20 minutes to go those 3 miles (9mph), but only 13 minutes to return to Glen Rock (13.85mph). I'm not sure if I'll add the Glen Rock to Railroad portion to my normal ride or not (it could be hard to fit it in between 5:30pm and sunset). I would like to add it just because the resistance of going up that grade would be good for my strength and anaerobic fitness level, but I'm not sure if I'm ready to do that every day.

posted by Wuphon's at 3:55 PM