Been some time since I did the first this test back in January. Have been feeling guilty about not using my roller much except for warming up for races. With some rainy looking clouds outside to make me procastinate a river run I did both; the roller and a short river ride.

I started this time at 20kph warm up on the roller for 5 minutes then added 5kph every 5 minutes.

5 minutes X 20kph small chain ring X 23 X 90 cadence
5 minutes X 25kph small chain ring X 21 X 90 cadence
5 minutes X 30kph big chain ring X 19 X 90 cadence
5 minutes X 35kph big chain ring X 23 X 100 cadence
5 minutes X 40kph ? 
5 minutes X 45kph 
5 minutes X 50kph 
1 minute X 55kph 
1 minute X 56kph
1 minute X 57kph
1 minute X 58kph
1 minute X… realizing I wasn’t going to hold another minute after this one I did it as a crescendo taking it to 70kph.
My heart rate didn’t go too high as I can get it higher on the Sunday morning sprints. What gets hard is stability. With high speed and a heavy gear on the roller you start to wonder if you are going to come off. My balance was good this time and I felt comfortable hitting 68, 69, 70kph… and that’s when I start to run out of gears and to get a higher cadence makes me wobble. The good sprinters can get a really high cadence in their heaviest gears and still maintain control and balance. This is what I’d like to work on.  Have a look thorugh our super racer’s blog and see how hard he trains and the cadence and heart rates he gets, just training. Check out the days he has no training = 500 or 600 sit ups!!!! Amazing training I’d like to emulate but think I’d need to quit my job to do this kind of workload. 

The last time I did this test was like this without my heart rate monitor on.
Total Distance: 22.27km
Average speed: 40.5kph
Max speed: 58kph
Time 32:56

Today’s results:
Total Distance: 25.603km
Average speed: 38.9kph
Max speed: 68.5kph (on heart rate monitor) 70.5kph on Cateye.
Time: 40 minutes
Average cadence 97. (Max 117) I did a lot of the warm up sections at 90rpm on purpose.
Average heart rate 135bpm =69% of Max.
Maximum heart rate 174bpm =89% of Max.

Does this mean I’m fitter or not? I think the lower average speed is due to my 20kph warm up instead of 25kph I did in the first one. This also added a 5 minute interval that I didn’t do in the first one.
To make any sense of this I will have to do it again and again and get lots of data before I can see a pattern.
I felt much better this time as well. I did it outside and the cool breeze helps dry out the sweat. The first time was done inside and the sweat drips everywhere.

After today’s test, I went for a cool down along the river and saw the biggest snake down there crossing in front of me. I also did some one legged pedaling. 500m on each leg for about 3km. I can see that my left leg is more efficient than my right and had to work hard to stop the right leg clunking through the 360 degrees. Tuesday night and Wednesday night trainings to follow.