Bring the pain

I don't have a picture today which is okay because you wouldn't want to see what I look like anyway. I suffered through the first set of real hill repeats of the year. I think a lot of people have already started this kind of training but I'm hoping that for me, putting it off another month was the right choice. I've got a long season ahead of me and I don't want to peak until August.

I made a decision this winter to start most goal training sessions tired. This may sound funny but Leadville has at least 5 major climbs, only 1 of which you hit fresh. The others you must climb quickly and recover before the next one hits. To put some hurt into my legs I did a hard hour at lunch on the road bike. 22 miles at 19.5mph average over a hilly course took the snap out of my legs pretty good and the warm up ride over to the Wall after work was definitely harder.

Once I got to the Wall I decided I would do 5 repeats of around 0.75 miles each. I rode from the subdivision at the base of the climb to the bike lane symbol over the crest. All repeats were done on around 5 minutes rest between dodging cars to turn around, descending the hill and looping back to the start. No cheating on the start and rolling at more than 5mph into the climb. All the speed to climb had to come from my legs. The climb is pretty brutal. A 20mph plus uphill start works your legs before it gets really steep and it takes all I have to keep above 10mph. Today I did my repeats in 2:52, 2:59, 3:07, 2:59 and 2:54. I was pretty gassed after each one although I'm a tiny bit disappointed in number three. From now on any climbs over 3 minutes do not count and every time I do another session I have to add one more climb. I'll be hating Jim for that rule by the time I get to 10.

Tonight I'm going to make some potato noodles and take care of Marni. She's reallly happy because she found out she gets her contract to teach Kindergarden renewed another year but it's not enough to overcome her sickness. Hopefully some rest, food and Vitamin C will help her feel a bit better. Not much to do on the bikes tonight except swap the pedals from the road bike to the time trial bike for Wednesday and check the air in the Reba for tomorrow's singlespeeding. David and I are going to ride together finally during my lunch hour at Colorado Hills. Hopefully he doesn't kick my butt too bad on my tired legs.