Yesterday I rode with Group 2 rather than Group 1 with TDC. I believe I could keep up for a second time. I also believe that when you’re cycling hard three times a week it takes a lot of energy.My experience last Saturday showed that I was pushing myself too hard by riding by cyclists stronger than me three times in a week, especially after riding close to my max on Wednesday, Thursday and then Sunday.
For years I have used Sportstracker, and then Strava and Komoot and others. Whether I use one platform or another isn’t much of a concern. I can send my data everywhere. The question is whether I make that data public, private, or a hybrid compromise.
With Suunto and Sportracker I usually keep almost everything private because I can’t highlight zones that I want to keep private. With Komoot it requires cropping the start and end point to hide where you live. With Strava you highlight where you live, work, where friends live or work and then it automatically hides activities to and from those points. Specifically it hides the first 200 meters or more, depending on how privacy conscious you are.
Today on two segments, specifically I rode fast. I rode fast because I know them well so it is easy for me to assess effort without feeling drained, or at least not too drained, and then I slowed down to the speed of the group.
The rest of the time I was making an effort to keep up. I know this because today the ride was short but my legs feel pumped, as if I have been on a hard ride.
One of the strangest things, in my observation of other people, is that they dress as if it was warm when it was cold. They dress in shorts and t-shirts to walk in the mountains in spring. That’s quite absurd, given how the mountains, in April tend to be cold.
Others dress in shorts and a t-shirt to go running when it is barely above freezing and I find this behaviour absurd too. In theory you don’t need to dress if your body is going to be hot and sweaty after a quick run.
Yesterday I came across something interesting and frustrating. Apple watches don’t need to be obsolete, themselves, to be unusable. If you try to pair an iphone 8 plus with an Apple Watch it will refuse because the OS is two generations too old. I tried to sync with the Iphone SE from 2020 and I am also having issues. The OS is 18.x so it should work fine.
It’s not just the watch that has to be kept up to date. The phone has to be up to date with the latest OS as well. If it isn’t then if you reset the watch for any reason, it becomes a brick. It seems absurd to me that a device that costs from 200-1200 CHF could become obsolete so easily, that its usability could be so fragile.
Over the last week I have cycled, and climbed over 3000m. Yesterday I climbed 1664 meters over an 89 kilometre ride. It was divided into the first climb, from the Léman towards La Cure, then a flat bit, ridden fast, before getting to the climb to Marchairuz and that is when I ran out of power.
I wasn’t hungry, or thirsty. My legs were fatigued, after climbing up the Jura on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. Thursday was a very hard ride, after which I felt fine, until the sprint back to Nyon. That’s when I was knackered.
Today I am resting. Yesterday afternoon I was planning to go for a bike ride with the easiest group and went with the hardest, after it was recommended that I do this. The result is that today I feel fine, but I’m still taking a rest day. Tomorrow I will have a physical 89 km ride with one thousand six hundred meters of climbing. I expect to be tired during the second climb.
Two or three weeks ago a friend asked whether I wannted to go to the outdoor cinema so I thought “maybe” and last night I did. We went to see La Venue de L’Avenir by Cédric Klapisch.
Years ago I wrote an essay about Klapisch within the context of the Cinéma de L’Auteur. Author theory Cinéma. The concept is simple. Some directors are so individual in their art form that it stands out. The best known of these films is L’Auberge éspagnole which then had two more films made.
Walking and hiking are integral to my identity. I walk from four and a half to five and a half million steps per year. I walk in heat waves, rare snow and normal conditions. I hike with groups and I walk alone. Recently my desire to hike is much lower.
This isn’t so unusual. I often get tired of going for daily walks so I have to work towards motivating myself to walk on weekdays. The issue is that the walks that were interesting are either dangerous because of cars, or because of dog owners that can’t read when someone is afraid of their dog.
People think that to be comfortable on a hot day you need to rush to an air conditioned room or building but that idea is wrong. When I worked on one building, for three years, I called it “air conditioned hell” for a simple reason. For the body to cool it needs air flow to help evaporate water. When there is no air flow it feels stuffy, and we interpret this as being too hot.