Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Big Pain

Yeah, climbing Big Mountain hurt. I kept thinking of what Art said, that when he's rolling good he maintains at least 10 mph up the climb. Well, it should come as no surprise that I fell short of that standard, averaging 7.8 mph. However, lest you think I had more to give my average heart rate was 181 so it was pretty much a full gas effort. Now you can understand why I'm trying to build more power... If you know any secrets you are able to share please pass them on. I need all the help I can get!

I was joined today by Kris who put the hurt on me climbing Emigration. He'd never been up the canyon before and was feeling it today which meant I was doing good to hold his wheel! The weather was great except for the COLD descent off of Big Mountain. It was cool (no pun intended) riding while the road was closed but all the debris was a bit tricky to navigate on the way down. I'm glad Hell of the North is flat.

Tomorrow is a quick, intense lunch ride on the dirt and then I'm off for a day (or two). I'm not racing East Canyon so need to come up with a cool ride to do Saturday.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I put the hurt on you? I seem to recall you taking the lead and opening a gap on me after the final switchback up to the Little Mtn summit. Yea, I hurt you real bad. ;-)
I did feel good on that ride and really enjoyed it. I tried to stay out of my granny gear (which I should be able to do with a triple), but I just couldn't do it on that last set of switchbacks before the Big Mtn summit. I thought I might be sore today, but only a little. It felt good to push myself.
The gravel on the road coming down was spooky, and down right treacherous in that one spot. I hope they get that shoulder work done soon.

Anonymous said...

Secret: Sweet Spot Training in the off-season to raise your threshold power (real base training) before interval training and racing begins. Oh, and be patient. ;)

P.