Eagle, ID — Today was my last day of the Base phase of my training. I managed to meet my goal hours for the week, but I really wanted to go over by a few hours. I did that long Homedale ride on Tuesday, but since then I was only able to get 2-3 hours outdoors, with additional aerobic work at the gym. This morning I went to the gym for some of that “supplemental” cardio work.

I did ellipitical for 30, stairmaster for 20 and swam for 20. Then this afternoon I headed out for a ride. It was a beautiful day, but as typical of late, it was windy and cold. The high only got up to 39°. I set out to do a 3+ hour ride but after 40 minutes I was already cold and, being later in the day, I knew it would just get colder. So instead, of doing a long ride, I made it higher intensity by doing some threshold work. I started a 2×20 on State Street heading west towards Middleton. There was a west wind so I had a strong headwind. Although my legs immediately started burning, the power was looking pretty good so I kept it up. With the headwind, it was actually pretty easy to keep my power where I needed it. After about 10 minutes though, I realized that I probably wouldn’t be able to do another interval after this one, so I decided to make this one longer.

I pushed the interval up the small hill to Hwy 30 and then made a right where I fininshed at 25 minutes. My power was the best yet for an LT interval so that was promising. I started another interval on Purple Sage going east, but my power was much lower so I aborted after only three minutes. I just rode home easy, but my legs were feeling the effects of the high-volume week plus the intervals I just finished. I had delusions of grandeur of getting on the trainer when I got home and doing another hour, but that only lasted 20 minutes. So I just called it a day. The last two weeks were pretty hard, mainly due to the cold weather, which I don’t do well in. But hopefully all this suffering will pay-off in the races to come!