Impact of Visibility on Training Efforts

dyrlac

Decided to sneak in a lap of Richmond Park on the morning commute. Unlike yesterday, when the chief danger was ice, today's effort was done in near white-out fog conditions. Totally unexpectedly smashed my PR up Sawyers Hill (Roehampton to Richmond Gate and all segments in between). While I expect most of that was down to "easily" obtainable training gains given that I've not been doing this for very long, at least some of it was down to simply not being able to see properly, so I didn't slacken off effort in anticipation of either the start of the climb or the end of the climb (since I couldn't really tell they were coming). The cycling equivalent of throwing your towel over the treadmill display. Would be pretty dangerous were I much faster.

Big_Ring_Rider

Tolworth bypass was misty enough this morning, I had no intention of sneaking a pre-work lap in!

But on the subject of your fast time, at a 24hour mountain bike enduro I did a few years ago, a lot of fast laps were posted in the night. Granted there are other variables to take into account, but from a personal perspective, not being able to see some obstacles I might otherwise slow down for must have made a difference...(I'm usually a wuss descending a mtb!).

cougie

Aah is this why they use visors on their TT helmets ? The fogging would have the same effect - geeeenius !

supermurph09

There is a Cat 3 Strava segment near me which I have ridden a number of times, spring, summer, wet, dry etc. The segment is a tight country lane, with hardly any illmunination at all. On July 18th in perfect conditions I set a time of 4m 57s. During November I hardly rode my bike (baby arrived) but at the end of November, at night with very poor front lights, in wet and windy conditions, with all my layers on, I did a time of 4m 48s! The following week in the same conditions I went 1 second better to 4:47.

No idea how I managed to go quicker than my summer times, with that in mind I will be writing to all the organisers of the local hill climbs and asking them to run them at night!

dyrlac

Supermurph09 wrote:

No idea how I managed to go quicker than my summer times, with that in mind I will be writing to all the organisers of the local hill climbs and asking them to run them at night!

Obviously the impact of tapering, or more likely, the gravitational pull of the moon. :P

sloppyschleckonds

Tailwind

thistle_

I set a few PRs at Llandegla in the dark, also got more air over the jumps at night. I think it was not being able to see stuff coming up and just dealing with it rather than being cautious like normal.

I struggle on the road in the dark though, especially going around corners where lights don't really light up the road ahead. Potholeaphobia I think.

imposter2.0

Dunno about anyone else - but if i can't see where I'm going, I tend to slow down, not speed up...

supermurph09

Imposter wrote:

Dunno about anyone else - but if i can't see where I'm going, I tend to slow down, not speed up...

When you are going up a 15% gradient the term speeding up is not really applicable!

BrandonA

Dyrlac wrote:

Decided to sneak in a lap of Richmond Park on the morning commute. Unlike yesterday, when the chief danger was ice, today's effort was done in near white-out fog conditions. Totally unexpectedly smashed my PR up Sawyers Hill (Roehampton to Richmond Gate and all segments in between). While I expect most of that was down to "easily" obtainable training gains given that I've not been doing this for very long, at least some of it was down to simply not being able to see properly, so I didn't slacken off effort in anticipation of either the start of the climb or the end of the climb (since I couldn't really tell they were coming). The cycling equivalent of throwing your towel over the treadmill display. Would be pretty dangerous were I much faster.

Do you think you were riding the rest of the ride slower than usual due to the conditions being so bad? If this were the case then you might have more energy to climb the hill as you approached it fresher.

dyrlac

BrandonA wrote:

Do you think you were riding the rest of the ride slower than usual due to the conditions being so bad? If this were the case then you might have more energy to climb the hill as you approached it fresher.

Possible, but my usual lap starts from Robin Hood, which is relatively flat all the way to Sawyers, and my Priory Lane up to the cafe time wasn't terribly affected by the fog.

Today was pretty speedy as well, probably because I had several Law-abiding cars to provide a good pace