Homebrewtalk Peloton

[betarhoalphadelta]

So I survived the 'vid... Confirmed with a positive test that I had it. It was mild, thankfully.

I managed to keep up my daily core streak through it, but didn't do much else until yesterday. Did a 20 minute core, 30 minute chest & back workout, and then a 60 minute PZE. I made it through the PZE in my zones the whole time (and with the new auto-resistance mode on the Bike+ in PZ rides, I was stuck right in the center of them no matter what cadence I was at lol).

So now I'm back at it. Falling a little behind the numbers I should be if I want to get that 20K badge this year, so I've got some catching up to do.

 

[Rodent]

finally got to fit a 30 ride into my schedule yesterday. wonderful to get some spin time in again. given my work/travel schedule thru end of March, it's going to be challenging to hit 10K this year BUT I'll take any time I can force into the schedule

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

If you have any interest in the Guide, get on this deal ASAP:

https://www.onepeloton.com/shop/guide/guide-starter-package-us

Guide, plus 2 sets of dumbbells, mat and water bottle for $135. You can pick any weight dumbbell, i.e. you can buy the 25# and 30# sets which are massively expensive individually, and can probably resell those dumbbells locally for almost the $135 you pay if you already have dumbbells.

Unfortunately I don't have a good place to set up and use the Guide, and just do my strength workouts via the Roku app on my TV. Otherwise I'd be jumping right onto this. The Guide adds some features like rep tracking and the ability to show a "self" mode so you can check form on exercises, etc...

And for anyone who doesn't have Peloton equipment today, the Guide can give you up to 5 user accounts so the $24 monthly membership cost would be more cost-effective than two or more people in the same household working out via individual app accounts.

 

[Kent88]

Dang...

 

[Rodent]

45 min ride yesterday, and a 45 min bootcamp today. starting to feel like old times

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

I've been keeping up with my "75+ minute ride twice per month" goal for 2024 by taking Matt's most recent 120-minute ride today. So that's now 4 on the year.

I gotta say... it felt... good?

I did think at the 75 minute mark "only 45 to go? I'm going to be sad when this is over!" But at the 119 minute mark--I was REALLY glad for the cool down and to get off the bike lol. But I knocked it out and stayed in my zones the whole time, and didn't go above heart rate zone 3. By the end the fatigue was setting in, but I got around it by dropping cadence a bit and relying on leg strength instead of cardio.

I tried to make sure I had adequate electrolytes and nutrition, having both a banana and a chocolate/peanut butter bar available to munch on during the ride, and my normal water plus a Kirkland sports drink. I've definitely noticed that when you get past 1 hour of riding, you need that stuff to make it to the end. I don't do 90-minute rides any more without it.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

I hit my 60 day streak today! That includes core workouts every day in 2024. Of course I didn't realize it was streak day and did a core workout as my first of the day. When I hit my 45-day streak I did a recent on-demand ride with 500+ people on and I think ended up getting something like 230 high-fives lol...

I'm going to extend to 61 tomorrow just based on schedule, as Wednesday will be a more convenient true rest day. Then nothing on Wednesday, and the daily streak starts again Thursday!

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

I've realized based on my rides this year that I'm doing a lot of PZE, and not enough PZ rides. I thought that the various "music" and fun rides would basically achieve the same thing as PZ rides as far as blocks of working on the higher zones. But I've done two PZ rides this year (both with Wilpers) and, uhh, the music rides are NOT the same.

One was a 60 minute ride with a pyramid of 8/6/4/6/8 with the 8m blocks in Z3, 6m in Z4, and 4m in Z3, with 4m Z1 recoveries after each. Holy crap, I didn't realize what 4 straight minutes in Z5 was going to feel like. I was crushed. The funny thing about it is that the first Z4 block seemed hard, but the second one (after a Z5 block) seemed SO much easier.

The one I did today was 45 minutes (great playlist--Emma did the playlist for Matt) and it was two 6m blocks of Z4 followed by 2m recoveries in Z1, then three 3m blocks in Z5 with 3m Z1 between. By the end of that third Z5 block I was STRUGGLING! This was the opposite of that other ride in that the harder zones were all at the end. It would have been easier to swap the order and do Z3 zones first, but one thing about Wilpers is that he doesn't program "easy".

I need to build in more PZ work, and that probably means more PZM work too.

 

[Rodent]

I hear you on the music rides not being the same as PZ, as I have the same observation. In my workouts prior to the big project in Jan/Feb, I was taking the PZE or PZ roadmap and using it as reference for what I would do on a timed scenic ride with Spotify playlist of my choosing. Wilpers had several class outlines that worked perfectly for this approach, and it kept the music playlist to my preference while also giving a scenic visual

Two months away from PZE/PZ was harsh on my fitness level, and I'm working back into shape with 30 min PZE classes. Gone temporarily are the days of a 60 minute ride with 10 minute out of the saddle sections at Zone 4 followed by 2 min Zone 3 recoveries and a 5 min Zone 5 out of the saddle and Zone 3 recoveries. I'll get back to that place by end of April

Good news in all my limited activity is that I kept to under a 5 pound weight gain despite the lack of rigorous exercise and high stress. I was quite happy with that, and see it as proof that the changes I've worked these past 18 months have taken a solid hold in lifestyle change thanks is large part to Peloton engagement and social interactions here

 

[Kent88]

Well I'm feeling better than I have the past few months, and a big community bicycle ride is coming up and I want to participate. My free subscription through health insurance has expired, and I apparently never put a real card on file. So today I went to set everything back up and actually pay for it. I didn't realize there are tiers of app membership. All the advertising I've seen has exclaimed that I can have access to workouts for $13/month.

Now, if I'm reading this right, I'm finding that for $13/month I can follow along with 3 cycling classes for the month. 3 per week, maybe I could have tried that out. Three per month? Nah. I guess I'm giving the $25/month tier a try.

Definitely motivates me to look for alternatives once this community ride is done. I was already planning on putting my account on pause for the summer while I try to ride outdoors.

We'll see how things go and I'll have a decision to make in September or October.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Well I'm feeling better than I have the past few months, and a big community bicycle ride is coming up and I want to participate. My free subscription through health insurance has expired, and I apparently never put a real card on file. So today I went to set everything back up and actually pay for it. I didn't realize there are tiers of app membership. All the advertising I've seen has exclaimed that I can have access to workouts for $13/month.

Now, if I'm reading this right, I'm finding that for $13/month I can follow along with 3 cycling classes for the month. 3 per week, maybe I could have tried that out. Three per month? Nah. I guess I'm giving the $25/month tier a try.

Definitely motivates me to look for alternatives once this community ride is done. I was already planning on putting my account on pause for the summer while I try to ride outdoors.

We'll see how things go and I'll have a decision to make in September or October.

Yeah, they changed the app pricing late last year. If you don't want to do "equipment" classes, i.e. cycling/tread/row, the lower-cost app is fine. But if you want to do cycling classes on your own bike, getting only 3 per month is rough.

One workaround *IF* anyone else in the household wants to participate is to just wait for a good sale and buy the Peloton Guide. I've seen it as low as $95 on Amazon recently (although it's back up to full price now). With the Guide subscription ($24/mo, same as the full-scale app cost), you get full access to all of the "equipment" content and you can add I think either 4 or 5 additional profiles to the account beyond yourself for no additional cost. So for two people it would be less expensive than you each getting the 13.99 app membership, but get more content. And if it's 3 or more people it'll pay for itself quickly.

 

[Rodent]

that is definitely a strange pricing model for app users

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Just checked off an accomplishment. Peloton workout #1000!

Since June 2022, I've now amassed 380 rides, 337 strength, 241 stretches, and a smattering of other modalities to round it out. And since I basically don't do warmup/cooldown rides, and do a lot of PZ work, I checked my average for the last 100 rides and I averaged 44.9 minutes per ride. So that's a lot of minutes and a lot of miles.

 

[Kent88]

Way to go!

 

[Rodent]

milestone day for me yesterday: took my 600th ride in the afternoon's replay of Kendall's latest Pop Punk ride. was #52 of 417 in the replay's leaderboard. feeling good about working my fitness back to where I was at the beginning of Jan when that unending project upended my schedule thru March

I don't like afternoon rides, as I'm usually stiff from sitting at my laptop all day. I could tell last night that I'd have had cramps in my calves if it'd been a 45 min ride. I could still feel the stiffness this morning even after stretching ahead of a 30 min PZE ride. took a follow-up 30 min scenic ride to flush out the legs and combine arm weights in the middle 10 min for some added conditioning.

definitely not where I was 18 months ago when I had a sit-down with my doc. thankful this hasn't been a short lived passing fad, but is now a solid part of daily life. thanks to those here who have been encouragement and inspiration these past 18 months!

 

[Kent88]

Good job!

 

[Rodent]

been taking a lot of timed scenic rides of late, and following a hybrid of PZE and regular PZ type format for the time. I like to fit in at least 1/3 of the time for adding light weights to the activity, and run thru a format similar to what would be done in a 10 min arms & light weights session like Kendall's Motley Crue class. no credit for the strength aspect of including the weights, but it does help me fit everything in during my time available.

speaking of arms & light weights, I remember a discussion earlier about this lower level strength workout. lately I've been using 3 pound weights when including this as part of my scenic ride, and a mix of 10 and 5 pound weights when taking a class dedicated to this. the higher volume of reps at a faster pace makes these lighter weights a definite workout (for me anyway) that I am seeing good results from.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

been taking a lot of timed scenic rides of late, and following a hybrid of PZE and regular PZ type format for the time. I like to fit in at least 1/3 of the time for adding light weights to the activity, and run thru a format similar to what would be done in a 10 min arms & light weights session like Kendall's Motley Crue class. no credit for the strength aspect of including the weights, but it does help me fit everything in during my time available.

speaking of arms & light weights, I remember a discussion earlier about this lower level strength workout. lately I've been using 3 pound weights when including this as part of my scenic ride, and a mix of 10 and 5 pound weights when taking a class dedicated to this. the higher volume of reps at a faster pace makes these lighter weights a definite workout (for me anyway) that I am seeing good results from.

Good stuff!

I've been off the upper body strength classes for a while as I did something to my shoulder when I was traveling to Indianapolis a few weeks ago. It seems almost 100% resolved so I'll be going back to that soon.

I've also been trying to do some more dedicated glutes & legs classes, doing them more often to avoid the terrible muscle soreness I'd get when I'd only do leg day once every 2 weeks or so. The good news is that it's working. I may end up a little sore the day or two after leg day, but it's not "it's excruciating to walk" pain. The bad news is that it's interfering with my normal ability to ride... I tried to do a PZE the day after leg day and realized that was a mistake. I really have to take it easy with a lighter ride, even a low impact, in those situations. Which is giving me fewer days that I have the time and energy to take a 60-minute (or longer) ride.

And I'm still perfect on my daily core goal... Perfect meaning every day this year, except the two times so far I had to take a day off to reset my daily streak after getting to 60. I don't consider those days "missed" but rather planned/deliberate non-activity days.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

I did this Ben 45-minute Power Zone Rock Ride live today for my 400th, and got a shoutout with a little over 5 minutes left in class! Woo!

Getting very close to 400 strength too, so I'll have to figure out exactly what day that'll be for a live class.

 

[Kent88]

That community bike ride I was talking about is done. I participated, but I didn't ride as far as I would have liked to. I still feel pretty good about what I managed to accomplish, and I managed to do so without tweaking my back/neck again.

So, it's outdoor cycling season.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

My Prime Day delivery just arrived!

 

[pvpeacock]

Where does the beer go in those? Are they pint glasses or liters?

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Where does the beer go in those? Are they pint glasses or liters?

My primary hashtag on my Peloton profile is #BeersAfter

This is what I do to be able to drink the beer

 

[Boleslaus]

Hello fellow cyclists, just found this thread!

 

[Kent88]

Hello Boleslaus! There is also another thread about bicycling, although it isn't getting much attention these days:

Are there any cyclist in the group?

Not that I'm discouraging you from chatting here, but just in case you are outdoor cycling rather than indoor cycling.

 

[Boleslaus]

Ah ok. I read "Homebrewtalk Peloton" as the literal translation meaning a group of riders haha. Thanks for clarifying that its about the actual indoor riding platform.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

I haven't done an FTP test since last October. Been off the bike and not doing lower body strength since the end of last week, so thought I'd suffer through and do it again today. Holy crap that sucks!

But I boosted my FTP from 306 to 320W, and that brings my FTP in W/kg up to 2.77. So at least I got a result that shows the hard work is actually working.

Now I get a fun reward. Harder zones! Yay!

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Passed a milestone today!

 

[Kent88]

Way to go!

I recently doubled the miles I rode outdoors last year. I think I'll be reactivating my Peloton account in a week or two.

 

[Kent88]

Ok, it's been more than a week or two, but I've reactivated.

I rode 500 miles outdoors this year, and I've decided that if RAGBRAI ends at or north of Dubuque in the next couple years, I'm going to try riding the last couple days. I think having that goal will help motivate me, and actually completing that goal would do me some good. Anyone who wants to join me, I will make an honest effort to help you to/from the Rochester or La Crosse airport.

But yeah, 500mi (Edit: almost 2.5 full days of butt in seat time to accomplish that). Some rides as many as 35miles continuously. I haven't kept track before, but I know before this year I had only gone 35 miles once and it didn't end well. I haven't always kept good notes on how many miles I've ridden in a year, but I would be surprised if I had previously ridden above 250 miles in a summer in my adult life.

The weather is turning. I probably have a few more days of good outdoor cycling, but it's time to get ready for indoor cycling season.