With my focus this season on Quality over Quantity, I haven’t done many “easy” rides. I’ve never been a fan of active recovery rides—riding at Level 1 (L1) for 1-2 hours. If I need a rest day, then sitting on a saddle for a couple hours with my power barely reaching 170 watts is not my idea of recovery. After a hard block of training or racing, there are certain parts of my body that need recovery just as much as my physiological systems! So what I usually do is jump on the rollers for 10 minutes to just spin my legs out. Once every few weeks, I’ll take a day completely off. But more often than not, I’ll just get on the rollers.

So today, I broke my tradition and actually went out for an hour at an L1/L2 pace. It was strange riding at such an easy pace and I found myself constantly gravitating towards to a more Tempo-like wattage. Instead of using my PowerTap to keep my wattage up, I was using it to keep my wattage down! But it was great to get out and enjoy the spring weather and do a route that I wouldn’t otherwise. Total ride time was just over an hour at an Intensity Factor (IF) of .64, making it the easiest ride I’ve done in 6 months (not counting those 10-minute spins)!