May 8th, 2008

Hoo boy was it windy today! I headed southwest to start, and - you guessed it - the winds were coming straight out of the southwest at 18mph and gusting to 28. Unfortunately, it was the kind of wind that even when I was heading northwest, somehow came around from the side and still put the hurt on.

Nonetheless, I got a good ride in. Started out with a nice, thorough warmup before turning southwest and starting the first of two 20 minute intervals, sitting right at threshold. The first one went off without a hitch (only had to drop to the little ring once into the wind and up a hill) and I sat just at LTHR, give or take two bpm in either direction, for the duration. I always have a bit of trouble with the second interval, and it was suggested by a friend of mine, Ken, that I'm not recovering enough in between the two. To try it out, I slowed way down for the 10 minute rest. I had a very slight tailwind for this portion and managed to recover so my heart rate was down to about 110 bpm, which actually left me feeling pretty fresh. The second interval had some slight musical malfunctions (I was using my iPod and several carefully selected songs to time the workout), but I figured it out and managed to actually finish the second interval, while keeping my heart rate up near threshold (a first for me - my second interval usually sees a drop of about 10-15 bpm from the first). I then finished the ride up just sub-tempo, after a bit more recovery.

Everything was feeling pretty good. I had taken another spacer off of my steerer tube and dropped my handlebars down about another half inch, so I was worried sitting in the drops for 20 minutes at a time would be a bit uncomfortable, but everything worked out and I've got no complaints.

All in all, about 45 miles and a little over two hours and 20 minutes. Did I mention it was windy?