Friday, July 30, 2010

Flawed Test Numero Dos

I have another loop I often do. The New Reverse Training Loop.
Today was the fastest lap of that route with a time of 1:35:56. My setup was the same as yesterday, except I swapped the Ardent for a trusty old Ignitor. I felt like Goldilocks; Aspen's not enough, Ardent's too much, Ignitor is just right. Good old Ignitors...
Last Saturday with the Aspen / Aspen rigid combo I did it in 1:41:37.
On the previous Monday I did it on the Karate Monkey HT with the Aspen / Aspen combo in 1:39:10.
Again although the loop was the same, Garmin has the mileage from 13.62 miles to 14.27 miles.
Now for some testing flaws.
Today I felt great, and the weather was AMAZING. I only had to stop twice; once for a nature break, and the other to fumble with my bottles as I tried to negotiate some rocky singletrack. I had a pretty full day; delivered 16 vanity tops. To put that in perspective, the average vanity top weighs 75 pounds. That's like lifting my 9 year old son holding a 30 pack 32 times, putting him in my truck, taking him out of it and carrying him around a jobsite. I also cast 4 tops ( 4 batches of cultured marble= 2x 70 lbs, 1x 80lbs, 1x 100 lbs, plus 40 lb bucket, then you scoop all that matrix out and put it in a mold) and finished another 3.

Last Saturday was humid as all hell. I was beater than beat too. Steve from VT was in town and I was up way past my bedtime. I haven't indulged in adult beverages in quite sometime, but from what I remember of them, it felt like I was hungover. I fumbled around work doing 1.5 hours of work in 4 hours before riding. My heart-rate average and high was the highest of all 3 days. I made a few stops for adjustments, but at this point I can't really remember why (we're talking 7 days ago!).

I plain don't remember what the previous Monday was like (see above).

So what does this tell us?
I'm faster when the weather is perfect and I feel good. I was pleased that I was faster rigid then on a HT, but again, look at my method.

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