I realize it’s been a few days since I’ve posted but that’s because I’ve been back training indoors, so there’s not that much stuff to write about! But today it warmed up and I went outside for a great ride. I started with 6 sprints. I didn’t get any super-high wattages, but they weren’t too bad, either. Then I did some Level 5 work with 5×5-minute VO2 intervals.

I started the first one on a flat road, into a slight headwind. When I started I was surprised how easy it seemed to keep my wattage up. Even after a minute, it was still in the high 300’s. I thought I was going to fade, but my legs felt good so I decided to shoot for a 5-minute record on this one. If I was doing a straight interval, I would have kept it around 340, but since I knew the best I’ve achieved so far this season was 375 (on the Thanksgiving Day ride), I knew I had to shoot higher. I pushed it through to the end and managed to get 376…one watt higher than my season-to-date best! It still didn’t break my all-time best of 389, but I was happy with it since I was able to do it on the flats. Both my season and all-time bests were achieved on hills, where I always get better wattage scores.

The only bad thing is that since I went all out, it essentially killed the wattage for the rest of my VO2 intervals! As Heather mentioned when I got home, your worst interval usually follows your best. So going for a record on my first interval was probably not the best idea. But looking at my HR data, I still think it was beneficial to do the remaining four intervals, even if my power was just barely into Level 5 territory.

After the 5×5, I rested for a few minutes and then did a 30-minute tempo interval. I just love doing tempo outside because it feels so much easier than on the trainer. I was able to average 265 watts without too much effort, which is the high end of my Level 3. Total ride time was 2:19 with a TSS of 175. So a great ride in some great weather. Hopefully, this little warm spell will last for the rest of the week so I can get in my last big week before Valley of the Sun!

Also of note was that I was nearly run over by a pick-up truck towing a horse trailer! I was riding eastbound on Purple Sage coming up on the Duff intersection (which doesn’t have a stop sign). The white pick-up was going in the same direction and started to pass me from behind. I noted that the truck was going awfully slow for this road, so I made sure I took a look at its turn signals as it went by. Wouldn’t you know it? It had the right turn signal on! As soon as I saw that I slowed down to get behind it and passed it on the left side. I watched as the truck didn’t even pause to see where I was and made a leisurely right turn onto Duff, oblivious to the fact that they would have run me over if I wasn’t paying attention! Thank goodness they used their turn signals…something that most Idaho drivers think is optional! When road cycling, it just pays to ride as if you’re invisible!