SIR Winter Training Series: Woodinville Leg Burner

Today I got up early and headed out by 7:40 AM for a ride up to Bothell, to be at the fifth of SIR's Winter Training Series. I haven't been doing many of the "official" training rides so far, but this one was sure to please, given its title.

The plan was to ride to the ride, to get in some extra miles given the approaching brevet season.

Breakfast - I'd forgotten to pick up some bagels or the usual morning food. So instead I went for some leftover Alu Mutter Paneer with naan bread from last night. It's actually one of my favorite foods:

Certainly not my usual morning fare, but the fried cheese gave me enough protein to last the day.

On the way to the ride, heading down Lake City Way - I saw this pile o' tires. Had to stop for the requisite shot:
Blurry front end, heading to the ride:


The ride start at Blyth Park in Bothell:The ride started off at a conversational pace, with 40 or 50+ riders sticking together for the most part. There was an interesting section where we had to walk around a fence, over some dirt. That certainly split up the ride at bit, but the hills really did it.

On Jaunita drive I felt good, and held a nice pace up its gentle grade. There were a few riders ahead, and eventually two more caught up to me. Chris from the local Byrne race team, another guy, and I made a three-person paceline on the way down, and I was the designated navigator, as they didn't have cuesheets. Mine was hard enough to read as it was (just a ziploc clamped to the handlebars, that flaps in the wind), but we made it.

There was a large pack of 10-15 riders behind us, that must've been caught up by stoplights.

We eventually caught up to Thai and a rider who I later found out was Brian at a stoplight. On the hills Brian would easily outclimb us all - trying to keep up with him was fun. I didn't even look at the Garmin unit (under the cuesheet anyway), since I didn't want the distraction of numbers. Riding with these fast riders was pacing enough!

Here's a shot of Thai, Brian, and another guy, with me making the "lead" pack of four riders
You can find the full photoset here.

I was hoping to turn around at some point to see Chris, Robert, and John, but that never happened. Sorry guys!

In the last 10 or so miles I was getting really hungry - the fact that all I'd had was the paneer for breakfast, coffee, and a banana for the 55 miles I'd done was catching up to me. But I was thinking about how hunger isn't always the same thing as bonking, and that I could hold with the pack for just a bit longer. And I did!

After arriving back at the park at 11:57 AM, we hung out for a few minutes, and Brian told a tale of a 12-hour 400k (with Chris Ragsdale & Urs Koenig). I don't think I'll be at that level any time soon, but it was fun to hang with the head of the pack for a day! I think I'll have to tone it down a bit for the bigger rides, but the interval training has certainly payed off.

In the end it was a perfect day of riding, and I even felt decently strong on the way back, up the hills of 5th Ave.

Power data for the ride:
Entire workout (178 watts):
Duration: 4:29:58 (5:28:46)
Work: 2906 kJ
TSS: 366.4 (intensity factor 0.902)
Normalized Power: 222
VI: 1.24
Distance: 74.172 mi
Elevation Gain: 7126 ft
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 868 179 watts
Cadence: 15 124 69 rpm
Speed: 0 62 16.2 mph
Pace 0:58 0:00 3:43 min/mi
Altitude: -221 497 180 ft
Crank Torque: 0 1779 221 lb-in

Also I hit a new peak five minutes (4.1 w/kg) - as you can see it was up an 8% grade, somewhere along the route:
Peak 5min (298 watts):
Duration: 5:00
Work: 89 kJ
TSS: 14.1 (intensity factor 1.299)
Norm Power: 320
VI: 1.07
Distance: 0.738 mi
Elevation Gain: 330 ft
Elevation Loss: 4 ft
Grade: 8.4 % (327 ft)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 571 298 watts
Cadence: 40 83 58 rpm
Speed: 3.4 19.5 8.7 mph
Pace 3:05 17:33 6:55 min/mi
Altitude: 17 344 172 ft
Crank Torque: 0 779 449 lb-in

Training ride stats:
Total Distance: 45 miles
Total time: 2 hrs 57 mins
Total gain: somewhere around 4,000 feet