Another one down, but since it’s the colder, darker, wetter months we don’t mind as much do we?
Actually it feels like we’ve escaped very lightly this year, with an exceptionally mild winter. This last week in February has been very pleasant indeed.
Ride stats for February
I’d noticed a little feature called “Goals” on my Garmin Connect page. It allows you to set various targets to achieve within certain time limits. For example, you could set a goal to train for 5 hours per week, or 10 times per month, or to do 5000 miles per year, or to burn X calories in a month – you get the idea.
The goal I set was to ride 400 miles in February. I’d done 334 in January, so it seemed a reasonable increase.
16 rides
401.39 miles
Elevation gained 7556 m
Top speed 43.6 mph
Average speed 14.1 mph
Biggest distance in one ride 64.46 miles
Max heart rate 174
Avg HR 125
Avg Cadence 73
I almost didn’t make my target of 400 miles when snow made me miss a sunday club run. This meant commuting more than usual (19 miles each way) and even then I was left with 33 miles to do in the last two days, with no option to commute (I often need the car to travel to meetings, so only commute if I know I’ve got an office day).
The penultimate day, I went out at night and did a wonderful 24 miles in very warm conditions; a beautifully still night.
This left about 10 miles to do on the last night, so what better way to accomplish this than repeating the 9 mile TT circuit. Pushing hard, I beat my PB by 30 seconds, so a very satisfying conclusion and my first Garmin Connect goal achieved. Thank goodness it was a leap year too, otherwise I’d have run out of time.
Where’s all this going?
I’m trying to work towards going faster with less effort. This means increasing average cadence, and being able to maintain a higher average speed with a lower average heart rate. I’m keeping my stats in a spreadsheet and hope to be able to demonstrate the trends over time, once I’ve got a good few months of data. (January ride stats here)
I wonder what March will bring?
Oh yes, it’s the Cheshire Cat on the 25th. They’ve been hyping Mow Cop to death, and I’m looking forward to seeing how justified they are to do so. Bring it on!