Weekend Rides — John Rothfusz

This weekend I got out and rode with Josh for the first time in over five years. We met at Station 3 Coffee in Shawnee. Amazing place. Good spot if you want to hang out with the family, or if you just want a good cup of coffee.

A cyclist riding away down an empty country road into a low sun, open fields and a fence line on both sides — Riding with Josh back in 2019. One of my favorite photos.

It turned into the longest ride I've done since tearing my Achilles. 18.23 miles in an hour and twelve, 1,093 feet of climbing, 146 average heart rate.

Somewhere in there I started cramping. It got bad enough that I could barely clip in. I got past it and finished the ride, which was a good mental win more than anything else.

Afterward we sat down with coffee and caught up on each other's lives. That's a lot of why I like cycling. The riding is good, but riding and then hanging out with friends is most of it.

A latte with rosetta art in a paper cup on an outdoor table, empty pastry bags behind it — Station 3 in Shawnee. This part is most of why I ride.

Monday I went out for an easier ten miles. It was supposed to be a recovery ride. With the wind and the heat it ended up harder than I wanted it to be. The road averaged 101 degrees and my heart rate came out at 146 again, same as the weekend. Not much of a recovery ride.

The sweat test

The week before I did a sweat test on a quick ten mile route. It was close to 100 degrees on the road, 98.6 average for the ride. I picked a hot day on purpose. I'm pointing at Unbound in 2028, the year I turn 40, and I wanted to see what race day could look like at the fitness I have right now.

I started at 194.3 and finished at 193.2, drying the sweat off before I weighed. The bottle went from 599 grams down to 138. So that's 1.1 pounds of body weight gone plus 461 milliliters out of the bottle, which is about 960 milliliters of sweat in 37 minutes. Scaled up, roughly 1,560 milliliters an hour.

Most riders land somewhere between 1 and 1.5 liters an hour, so I'm past the top of that. Heavy sweater. Not much of a surprise at 148 average heart rate in that kind of heat, but now it's a number instead of a guess.

What's next

More rides with Josh, and growing the distance I can ride. After that it's the training area in the basement: a TV, a Wahoo Kickr and Zwift.

If you want to follow along, I'm on Strava as John Rothfusz.