Base 3 Test

I was trying to think of something clever to title this post, but I decided everything I came up with was stupid... so, instead, you get "Base 3 Test". Brilliant!

I did my LT field test on Sunday. I was a little concerned about how it would go since I've never done a hard ride the day before. I felt OK on Sunday morning though, so I figured I'd give it a go.

I held back a bit over my first 10 minutes; I mean, I still went pretty hard, but I left a little in reserve. I kicked it up just a bit for the last 20 minutes; I didn't even switch gears, just upped the cadence a bit. The result was a new personal best!

My average power over the last 20 minutes was 254 Watts. That's a 16W improvement over my last test (which, if you recall, I sort of blew). It was also an 11W improvement over my previous PB, which was at the end of last season. And just in case you think it's because I held back on my first 10 minutes, I also covered more total "distance" on the trainer than I did on my old PB.

If you believe these power numbers and the "power profiling" chart, I'm starting to get into Cat 2 territory with my LT power-to-weight number. Fortunately, I've ridden with enough roadies to know that I have nothing approaching Cat 2 abilities. Still, it's fun to track.

So I'm pretty happy with all of that. Right now, I'm extremely confident with my training plan in terms of continuing to develop my fitness. As I posted before though, my real limiter seems to be confidence in my trail riding skills. So I'm going to try to put a little more effort into that for a while.