Good Week Of Riding – BionicOldGuy

I had a fun week of riding this week. Tuesday I went “round The reservoirs” and out and back on Casa Loma road with my group, a favorite local ride. This was on my upright wearing my SI joint belt and my SI tolerated it fine. I’m still doing well standing for longer periods of time a couple of times a week on the upright. I’ve also been able to walk a lot farther without issues. I’m glad of that because visiting my brother in Phoenix, or other times while traveling, I like to walk a lot when biking is not as convenient of an option.

My other rides and upper body workouts all went well, except Wednesday when I became a little too preoccupied about my heart rate during the ride. It turns out I’d accidentally taken an extra dose of metoprolol the night before which was keeping my heart rate lower than the range I shoot for. What I enjoy most is a nice brisk steady state ride, which usually works out to an average heart rate in the vicinity of 110 for me. I’ve decided to concentrate on doing a lot more of these and cut back to one hard ride a week. This is very similar to the base training technique of Dr. Phil Maffetone, also known as the “MAF method” (for Maximum Aerobic Function). If I followed this to the letter I should actually omit the one hard day, but I want to maintain the strength and speed I already have while “building the base” on the other days. I did a “MAF time trial” on Friday, which is seeing how fast you can go on a course while staying at your target maximum heart rate, 110 for me. I rode a local course of just under 7 miles, which took 31 minutes 45 seconds (no electric assist). The idea is to repeat this once a month and if my aerobic capacity has improved the time should keep going down. It will be interesting to see how this turns out, but I can tell so far this is a very enjoyable way to train.