It was unseasonably warm in the Treasure Valley again today. The snow and cold is supposed to return tomorrow, with highs in the 20’s predicted for the weekend, so I wanted to get the miles in while I can! I headed out west on Floating Feather then Foothill and eased into a decent effort as my legs felt extremely tired and heavy from yesterday’s ride.

I headed west and then north towards Galloway. I took Galloway westbound and made a right on Middleton Rd. I saw a couple of riders way up in the distance, so I “kind of” increased my pace to see if I could catch them (no competitive spirit here…nope, nope). Originally I was planning to continue west, but when I caught the two riders we started chatting and I ended up riding with them for the next hour. I joined them on their planned route which took us down Little Freezeout, north on Tom’s Cabin Rd, then east on Hwy 52. We pushed the pace a little going into Emmett where we eventually parted ways. Even though my legs felt awful, I was committed to keeping it a long ride so I stayed on Hwy 52 while they headed towards Old Freezeout.

After a quick rest stop in Emmett, I took Hwy 52 towards Horseshoe Bend. On this section—one of my favorite stretches of road—I did 45 minutes of tempo. It felt hard and I had to make a conscious effort to keep my wattage up. It seemed that anytime my wattage was over 230, my legs burned! It was different than the weak-legged, bonking type feeling (like yesterday); this was more of a fatigue. Kind of the way my legs feel a few days into the first stage race of the season. I kept this in mind thinking, “at least I’m suffering now, and not during my first stage race!”

After the 45-minute tempo interval, I took it easy into Horseshoe Bend where I took another water and bathroom break. Then I got back on the bike and headed up Old Horseshoe Bend Rd. Out of habit, I started an interval at the first cattle guard. I wasn’t going try to climb it fast or anything, but I ride this hill so often that I like to have a record of all my times, however pathetic they may be! It helps me rationalize when I get home; despite feeling so bad, it still wasn’t my slowest time!? That honor goes to when I did this ride on my PowerCranks. Talk about suffering!?

I rode at a tempo pace all the way up to the second cattle guard at the top of the hill. I wasn’t breathing hard, it was just hard on my legs. But in a weird way it kind of felt good. There’s no traffic on this road so I was able to zone out, listen to my breathing and just visualize as I was climbing. At the top, I took a quick stop to take a picture. I know many of you readers probably get sick of all the graphs and charts in my blog, so I’m going to try and add more of the “human” element with photos. After my mugshot, I sped down the hill and cruised all the way back to Eagle. Thankfully I had a tailwind most of the way. After the climb, I didn’t think I could go hard again if I was confronted with a major headwind! Total ride time was 4hrs 9mins with 238 TSS and 214/231 ave/norm power.

Even though my legs felt so bad at the start that I was contemplating shortening the ride, I’m glad I stuck it out. I rather suffer on my own during a training block like this, than in a stage race. The other bonus is I finally got my chronic training load (CTL) up to 90 TSS/day, which is my early season target. I’m planning on keeping it there until a taper before Valley of the Sun.