I think biking 11 days in a row is taking a toll on my power output. Today’s bike ride on the “Atascocita South – Walden – Huffman” route was tough on my legs. I couldn’t get my speed above 16 mph for any length of time. Granted the first 10 miles of the ride didn’t have many stretches of riding without stops or near stops for traffic lights and stop signs. Once I got south of FM 1960 the number of stops dropped down and I was able to improve my average speed from 13 mph to 13.5 mph. It took crossing Lake Houston on FM 1960 a long stretch of not stopping to get to 13.9 mph. According to my Elemnt computer my max watts was 378 and average was 106. Heart rate average was 127 and max was 149. Considering my age I think the heart rate is not too bad. In the past I have had my power average in the 120 to 140 range so 106 is not so good. The wind was 9 mph from the SE which caused me to work hard but wind is a fact of bicycling. I am planning on not biking Sunday for a rest day. Maybe that will help some.

The weather during today’s bike ride: start 89 (68% humidity), mostly cloudy, wind S 8 mph. Finish 94 (44% humidity), partly cloudy, wind SE 9 mph. Start time was 11:02 am, about 40 minutes earlier than yesterday. With the mostly cloudy sky the heat didn’t feel so intense but by the time I stopped in Huffman at the Chevron station the clouds thinned out some and the heat increased. I took extra time for the rest stop to allow my legs some recovery, drink cold water and eat a couple of granola bars. This was about 22.7 miles into what turned out to be a 34.61 mile long ride. The extra rest time helped my legs and cycling west on FM 1960 to Pinehurst Trail was at a higher pace. This bumped my average speed to 14.0 mph.

Anticipating a tailwind once I turned right onto Pinehurst Trail I was able to maintain a 15 to 16 mph speed with not quite as much effort riding other directions. But once I was on W. Lake Houston Parkway bicycling north the moving traffic helped too. Turning left into Kingwood Greens my speed dropped down because my legs were tired and rode at 13 to 14 mph until the ride finished at 2:13 pm.

As of today: 141.13 miles for the week, 234.42 miles for June, and 3136 miles year to date.

SportTracks Bike Ride Summary