From 30 Seconds to 60 Minutes

Sunday, end of August.

After the long, hot, dry summer we’ve had, this weekend has been properly rainy. I was hoping to get out on the bike, especially with the Dingle Peninsula trip coming up in two weekends’ time. It’s only 120km, but I wanted to get a bit of practice in this weekend, maybe 60km or so, just to keep the legs used to longer rides.

That didn’t happen.

Instead, I’ve just come off the rower. Actually, I’m still sitting on it as I write this, recovering.

The session was three 20-minute blocks, giving me an hour in total. Gradual progression, getting faster as it went on. Nothing frantic, just steady work.

The thing that amazes me is that I did the full 60 minutes, just over 14km, at an average pace of 2:09/500m.

Thinking about it, that’s pretty mind-blowing. There was a time when I could only sustain that pace for short bursts. Not 30 minutes. Not even close. More like 30 seconds.

And here I am now, averaging it for a whole hour.

So yes, there is definitely progress happening. Sometimes it’s hard to see when you’re in the middle of it, but numbers like that make it pretty clear. The aerobic base is there. The cruising speed is improving. The work is paying off.

Cycling around Dingle is coming in a couple of weeks. The 2K test is still the target for the end of October.

Let’s see how it goes.

This is The Sub-7 Experiment.