30 Minutes Back on the Bike

The workout

Thirty minutes on the trainer with Denis Morton. A reset ride, which is exactly what it sounds like. Not a fitness test. Not a suffer fest. Just movement.

• Avg watts: 181W
• Normalized power: 190W (NP smooths out the surges and coasting to give a better picture of actual effort)
• Total work: 326 kJ
• Distance: 10.19 mi (indoor, so the number is relative)
• Time: 30 min

Why this matters

My current FTP is 216W. That means I rode this reset at roughly 84% of FTP on average, which is moderate. NP at 190W puts it at 88%. Neither number is alarming. Neither number is impressive. It was a reset ride and it did what it was supposed to do.

For context: FTP (Functional Threshold Power) is the highest average watts you can hold for about an hour. It's the baseline number I use to measure fitness and set training zones. My peak was 295W in July 2022. I'm working back toward something closer to that.

Where I'm at

I've been public about the fact that my fitness is not where I want it. At 209.8 lbs and 2.27 W/kg, I have a lot of ground to recover before August 29th. That's the date of the 2026 TheBayRide, 135 miles around the Bay.

A 30-minute reset isn't going to close that gap. But skipping it wouldn't help either.

The honest version of training, the kind I'm trying to document here, includes the days that don't look like much on paper. This was one of those days. I got on the bike. I turned the pedals. I logged it.

What's next

I'm going to keep posting these. The reset days, the hard days, the weeks where volume drops because life gets in the way. If you're training for TheBayRide, whether you're doing the full 135 or the 35-mile option from SF to Oakland, I hope watching this in real time is useful. Not as inspiration. Just as an honest look at what it takes to show up on August 29th.

More soon.

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