group ride mile repeats...

Thursday evening:

Went over to the Village Cycle Sports group interval ride that happens every Thursday throughout the outdoor riding season. The weather was warm and a very strong WSW wind which made things a bit of a challenge but its all good. The area they ride at is about a 2 and a half mile rectangle box as each straight away is just over 1.2 miles long. Lots of people showed up again due to the nice weather which always leads to a large peleton group ride. This is fine if bike racing is your main sport but for tri/du/tt'ers whom drafting is illegal it’s a challenge to get in a clean shot at pushing your own air.

During my warm-up first couple loops I would drop way off the back of the group so I was able to push my own air during those mile repeats. After my legs felt warm-up I worked my way out front of the larger grouping and was able to get on 5 – one mile repeats solo focusing on aero-positioning and getting the power to the ground to maximize the repeat. On by last loop which I use as a cool-down I found a group of friends and on course I pushed the last mile repeat with the 5 of them. Below are some of my better one mile cycling repeats with time and average & max speed:

2:34 – average 23.3mph – max 26.9mph
2:16 – average 26.4mph – max 28.5mph
2:16 – average 26.4mph – max 30.4mph
2:10 – average 27.5mph – max 30.5mph

I rode for 1:08:52 for 22 miles which is an average pace of 19.2mph and a max speed of 30.9mph plus my average HR was at 123bpm with a max on the big push of 151bpm. Overall my performance was good out there but my legs & body were feeling the fatigue from Wednesday night running 1k track repeats…

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