Seldom Bucket

Well, finally, after all of my bravado, a bucket (or was that toilet?) was required after tonight's spin. Or, rather, during. Twice! Was it that hard? Was it the effect of being in a room with lots of other panting sweaty people? Was it the Kurt Kinetic Road Machine? Or, perhaps, was it the large bowl of ice cream I'd had an hour and a half earlier as a final hurrah to carbs and which was decidedly less pleasant on the way back up? It's hard to say, though Thursday's repeat back at home should give an indication.

:00 E1
:05 2 x 6s HCLR:1
:10 2 x 7s PG+12 SS:3
:16 2 x 8s PG+6 RS (60, seated):3
:22 2 x 12s PG RS (80, seated):4
:30 2 x 8s BGSS (L,R):3
:36 35s PG RS R/up, 10:100, 10:135, 15:max
:44 35s HCLR r/up 10:100, 10:135, 15:max

A little housekeeping first - we didn't quite keep to those times precisely. Towards the end of the first SS my bike fell off the trainer because the plastic end cap of my skewer broke off! When that happened, the speed sensor must have been knocked slightly because my speed readings from that point were erratic, and have been calculated from gear/cadence - the cadence reading was fine, despite the odd random spike. I was a minute late getting back from the toilet for the first BGSS, and so did it on my own and in my frazzled state only did 6 seconds, not 8. And I didn't make it for the final HCLR rampup, just finishing with a 10s HCLR instead. Finally, the difference in the trainers was notable, but perhaps not quite as much as I expected. Definitely harder to get going, definitely easier to keep going. I'll reserve further judgement until I do the session again on Thursday.

So all that said, how was it? Well, I was pretty happy really. There were extraneous issues as listed above, and I was slightly nervy getting out of the saddle for the first SS because I wasn't sure how the KKRM would behave. Still, I ended up with satisfactory numbers - the officially recorded value for the first HCLR was 201, but I saw 208 briefly and held above 200 for the last 2-3 seconds of the effort, so happy to have broken that barrier - though I suspect it's more the difference in trainers than a sudden increase in my ability over 1 week!

Numbers:
7s PG+12 SS#1 – 134/59.7
7s PG+12 SS#2 – 128/57
8s PG+6 RS#1 – 147/61.4
12s PG RS#1 – 145/57
12s PG RS#2 – 143/56.2
8s BGSS (L) - 111/61.8
8s BGSS (R) – 112/62.4
35s PG RS R/up – 132/51.8

Note that I didn't even manage 135RPM in the PG rampup! I was well rooted by then. I managed about 30 seconds at a reasonable cadence, and how much of the last 5 seconds you count probably depends upon how generous you're feeling! But cadence rather plummeted. I didn't quite do the second BGSS properly either - I was rolling with 2 seconds to go, suddenly remembered, slammed on the rear brake, tried to get my foot position sorted, and just went at the mark. I've no idea if I was fully stopped or which leg I ended up starting on, but I think it was my left again. Ah well.