Training Log Archive: iansmith

In anticipation of a cloistered, isolated winter, I purchased a folding stationary bike for my apartment. My road bike is not really suited for adverse winter conditions, and while it's only a rough approximation, the stationary bike hopefully can help me stay in cycling shape. The stationary bike was inexpensive, and because it folds, it is quite compact.

My first impressions are that the bike will be excellent for the niche of a low to moderate intensity, regular workout. It's very convenient to step out onto my balcony, bike for an hour, and come away feeling better and in a good mental place.

For my workout, I warmed up for 25 minutes exploring the different difficulty settings. I then did 5x 4 mins intervals with 1 minute rest; the intervals were at roughly 90 rpm on difficulty setting 6.

The reported metrics from the bike are clearly nonsense; the bike reported over 900 calories expended on this workout, and 19.6 miles. A particular problem with distance as a metric is that you accumulate distance faster at the lowest difficulty setting. I'm logging them to provide metrics, but I don't have much confidence in them. Power would be most informative.

C • Stationary bike 3

Easy ride with Katie. I wanted to show her the York Beltline trail and Prospect Cemetery, both of which she had not seen on her bike. It was an excellent day, with clear, sunny skies and a temperature over 22 C. I adjusted the time to approximate training relevance. Prospect had a pleasant, serene atmosphere with less crowding than Mt. Pleasant. Unfortunately, cemeteries aren't realistic places for traveling fast.

Errand to pick up squash racquet and plant from Laleh. I biked back quite slowly, as the leaves of the ~1m tall plant were protruding from my backpack and risked damage from wind. The sunset from the Glen St bridge was particularly magnificent.

Easy ride. It hasn't been a great week for me, but I am getting back on track.

Easy ride on the usual route. This one hour loop can be dodgy in places, and it isn't the most arduous loop. Nevertheless, my day is always improved when I do this circuit. Continued re-listening to The Way of Kings in anticipation of starting Stormlight Book 2.

Canoeing in cottage country, on the lakes adjacent to Kawartha Highlands Provincial Park. We rented from the Catchacoma Marina, and the experience was delightful. The canoeing reminded me of the boundary waters, with numerous passages among a network of lakes. Katie had a better experience with canoeing than kayaking; she enjoyed the motion and being higher in the boat relative to the water.

We brought a few liters of water, a 400g bag of M&Ms, some other light snacks, and emergency gear.

Katie and I spent the day in Peterborough.

Katie and I took a short vacation to Burleigh Falls, Peterborough, and the Kawartha Highlands area. The Inn we stayed at in Burleigh Falls had a kayak rental immediately adjacent, so we rented a double kayak for a journey on the scenic Stoney Lake. We stopped for a very classy lunch at Hobart's Lighthouse, then just skirted Clear Lake before heading back to the rental place at 5p. A beautiful day.

Our kayak was a bit of a tub, and curiously, it had holes in the seats through to the water. I imagine the holes were for stability, but it made for a very wet experience. Importantly, we kayaked further than Will did on Friday Sep 11.

Today's ride was a 120 km ride to Burlington and back with largely the same route as on May 23. I decided to travel ultralight today, and I only brought 750 mL of water and two granola bars, of which I only ate one. Riding without my backpack felt fine, though it was not a dramatic improvement. I started late enough that I encountered some traffic and more red lights than I would have two or three hours earlier.

I ate a clif bar 1:15 into the ride, and I took a slightly different route - riding Speers Rd on the outbound in lieu of Lakeshore. Speers seemed a bit slower than Lakeshore, with more red lights and passing near a mall.

I rode fairly hard, and it was encouraging that I averaged comfortably over 33 kph outbound on any stretches without stops (e.g. 2 km autosplits). I stopped at Spencer Smith for a few minutes at 63 km, drank some water, and took in the vista of the lake. I had planned to eat a granola bar early on the return leg, but I decided to avoid it to see how I would feel and to train digging deep when hungry. Perhaps because of this, I had a few slower stop-less splits, with a couple 2 km autosplits below 30 kph. I was definitely fading after 100 km; any time I really cranked up the power, e.g. to go up a hill, I found my available power reserves very shallow. I suspect I would have bonked hard after another hour or two.

Unfortunately, my rear tire went flat at 111 km. I had two tubes with me - the first replacement had a very short stem, and my minipump couldn't quite make a secure seal. The second tube stem was about a half inch longer, and it was a relatively quick exchange. I'm not fast at tube replacement, and it took about 30 minutes total with all the stem challenges - not aided by the fact that I only had one tire lever. A skill to work on for sure.

Garmin died, as it evidently wasn't fully charged when I started. I started riding home on St Clair, but the street has so many painful stops, and street parking kills one of the two lanes - which both slows travel and increases the interactions between cars and bikes. At Via Italia, I dropped down to Davenport and got the added bonus of a fun hill up Poplar Plains.

C • One tire lever 12

Easy ride on the Don Mills Trail with Katie. My front derailleur committed hari kiri at about 80 minutes in; I stopped for fifteen minutes to diagnose and try to fix the problem. Curiously, the screw mounting the derailleur to the bike frame had stripped, so the derailleur was hanging free. I'm not sure how this happened, as I have always ignored this screw. I secured the derailleur to the frame with electrical tape and rode home locked in my 34 tooth front gear.

Update: while I thought the derailleur itself was damaged, my LBS Bikes at St. Clair thought it was fine, and replaced the screw. As they had replaced the entire derailleur in July, they nicely didn't charge me for this fix. I dropped off the bike on Wednesday, as the store was closed on Monday for Labour Day, and they had it fixed Thursday.

A pleasant, relaxed 100 km ride in the relatively unexplored NW quadrant from Toronto. There were more hills and more traffic than I expected on King Rd, making the second half a bit stressful.

Tempo workout, 4x10 minutes at Major Mackenzie and Warden. Each side of the designated rectangle is about 6 km with only one traffic light. For the first and fourth bout, I rode in the aerobars; on the second and third, I rode on the hoods. The route is slightly uphill (+40m) on the odd bouts. The result was a bit inconclusive, as the aerobars only showed an improvement on the uphill, which doesn't make much sense. I probably was overenthusiastic on the first bout, and progressively more tired - which is why I paired bouts 1 and 4. More data is clearly needed.

Uphill: Aero = 11:57, Hoods = 12:53
Downhill: Hoods = 9:49, Aero = 9:51

All my workouts this week have been focused on finding a good spot for various intervals. In transit (29 km), I found some attractive stretches of road on the NS-bound major roads between Finch and Hwy 7. Warden and Finch (e.g.) is about 18 km away, which makes it much more reasonable.

Also, two observations from my Simcoe ride on Sunday that I forgot to mention:
1) I could see so many stars. Once I passed Orillia and moved out of the tree cover, the night sky was brilliant.
2) My stomach was struggling halfway through the ride, and I was only eating my clif bars and the like because I was forcing them down. I need to find more variety. Sandwiches and goldfish are more pleasant for fueling - with some bars for convenience.

Easy ride with Katie to Tommy Thompson Park. Actual time was 2:21, but I somewhat arbitrarily decided 1:25 was more representative of the effort. We couldn't go that fast in Tommy Thompson, as there were numerous pedestrians, a speed limit, and speed bumps. I have been in this area before, but I am particularly excited about a Commissioners - Unwin loop, which is about 7 km with few stops. The road quality is mediocre at best in places, but I must return to try speedwork. Glorious soundtrack is glorious.