Sunday, April 26, 2015

2015 Haleiwa Metric Century Ride

My goal for this years Haleiwa Metric Century Ride was to treat it as a training ride for my upcoming triathlons. My plan was to do an easy ride until past Waimea Bay, then do a non-stop time trial to the turn-around at Swanzy Beach Park, then after a nice break ride back at an easy, aerobic threshold pace. This meant riding alone, and skipping our customary stop at Ted's Bakery.

I waited until the last minute to decide where to start. I enjoy the excitement and camaraderie of the official starting point, but this time I was afraid traffic would interfere with my plan. Since Pattie was leading a slower, short distance group and we were to meet friends for lunch at Haleiwa Joe's, leaving early from Ali'i Beach Park would mean less waiting for me to finish. This is why my actual distance is short.

The Honolulu Triathlon course is flat when compared to the Tinman, and I had no idea what pace I could expect to hold for 40K. I figured that if I started my time trial after Waimea Bay the only hills on the course would be behind me. By my calculations Waimea Bay to Swanzy Beach Park was a bit short of 40K but I used 40K (24.86 miles) in my plan anyway, because I was really looking for a pace estimate.

Since my first A race is only a few weeks away I did not want this to be an all-out effort. My plan was to cut short the 40K and keep the pace lower than what I hoped would be race pace. I decided my goal pace for the time trial portion should be mid-high zone 2, just above aerobic threshold. The warm-up and return should be slower, well within aerobic threshold (1.8Z - 2.4Z). Another consideration I had was that for the century ride I had nothing before or after, whereas in a triathlon the bike comes after what will be for me a challenging swim and is followed by a 10K run. I need to find a pace that was just fast enough without requiring all my energy.

Before digging into the numbers let me say that my feeling, during and after the ride, was that I got the pace spot on. Once during the time trial I took the pace well up into zone 3 and still felt strong. I doubt that I could hold that pace for 40K and still be able to run, so I will stick to the pace I used today. Maybe a little higher; we'll see. As I approached Haleiwa my legs felt good so I decided to let them run. I am still no speed daemon, but it felt good.

I had one glitch with speed data dropping out around Kahuku on the way out. I fought off the temptation to stop and fix it as I was supposed to ride non-stop to Swanzy. A little further down the road it came on by itself. I'll blame it on the high powered radio transmitter at the fire station.

Value Plan Actual
Overall
Duration 5:00:00 3:50:47
Distance (mi) 62 51.9
Avg. Speed 12.4 13.5
Time Trial
Duration 2:00:00 1:25:24
Distance (mi) 28.8 19.9
Avg. Speed 13.0 14.0
Avg. HR Zone 2.8 2.7

Below is the breakdown of my time in heart rate zones. The time in zone 3 was mostly outbound, while all of the 4 and 5 was at the finishing sprint. What stands out is that I spent most of my time approximately where I wanted to be.

1Z 6%
2Z 83%
3Z 9%
4Z 2%
5Z <1%

Too bad the data is not finer grained; I would like to know how much of that 2Z was below 2.5. What the data can tell me is that my average HR for the TT was 126, for the return 124, and overall 124. This suggests that I did the return faster than I intended. Perhaps I was inspired by lunch to follow at Haleiwa Joe's. The pulled pork sliders were delicious, washed down with Kona Wailua Wheat Ale.

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