Week One Complete

Well, not quite. I still have a recovery ride to do tomorrow to actually complete the first week of training since I got turned back on to cycling.

It has been a mixed week. In some ways it is discouraging to struggle on the road now when the same performance would have been an easy recovery ride a year ago. Heck, actually, my recovery rides were generally faster. Looking at my last year's data, I find a recovery ride at the end of July where I had the following data:

Entire workout (155 watts):
Duration: 1:10:16
Work: 647 kJ
TSS: 35.5 (intensity factor 0.553)
Norm Power: 170
VI: 1.1
Distance: 15.954 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 528 155 watts
Heart rate: 68 121 103 bpm
Cadence: 29 215 96 rpm
Speed: 0 35.6 13.6 mph
Pace 1:41 0:00 4:25 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 385 99 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 1185 148 lb-in

Compare that to today's ride:
Duration: 49:45
Work: 562 kJ
TSS: 74 (intensity factor 0.949)
Norm Power: 219
VI: 1.15
Distance: 10.4 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 1088 190 watts
Heart rate: 88 155 136 bpm
Cadence: 29 170 75 rpm
Speed: 0 38.8 12.5 mph
Pace 1:33 0:00 4:48 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 611 150 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 950 219 lb-in

So, I went further, faster and with less power output less than a year ago than I did today. What a difference 64lbs can make.

But, all is not doom and gloom. On the "moral" side, just the fact that I'm back to riding consistently is a victory, even if my overall performance is way down. Even the performance side isn't all on the worse side, as the graph below illustrates.

The solid yellow line is mean maximal power for this season while the dashed line is for last year. The vertical black line is just to mark off where the two lines cross. So in durations less than 7 seconds, my max power output is actually higher this year than last. This is just raw power, not watts per kilogram of weight, but still, it is better than last year.

I still have a long ways to go, but at least I feel I've made a start.

Regards.