Today started out looking like yesterday; overcast and fairly cold. I was hoping that it would warm up later in the day, so I decided to wait until the afternoon to ride. In the morning I visited a cycling buddy of mine who is in the hospital with acute leukemia. Jason’s been going through chemo, but has good spirits and is battling this like he does his mt bike races! The good news is his latest bone marrow tests look great and he should be able to return home soon. There will still be more treatments in the future, but they’ll be spaced out more and not as intense. In the meantime, his old running club, Eastside Track Club, has put together a benefit race for Jason. It’s a short, but very steep, hillclimb that is open to both runners and cyclists. It will be interesting to see who’s faster on one of Jason’s favorite training hills. He says his best time is 17 minutes…we’ll see if anyone can beat it!
By the afternoon, the sun was out and the temperature finally got into the 50’s. I headed out to do the Lactate Threshold (LT) workout I wanted to do yesterday: 4×15 minute intervals at 100-105% of FTP. It was extremely windy which I didn’t mind because it would give me the opportunity to do intervals both with a headwind and a tailwind. I did the first interval up Hwy 16 with a tailwind. It’s a gradual climb but the tailwind kind of negating it. My legs burned soon after I started the interval, but I was able to keep my power near my target so I continued on. It wasn’t as easy as yesterday’s 5-minute push and I started second-guessing my choice to bag it yesterday?!
I finished the interval near the top and averaged 307 Watts. I then turned around and did one into the headwind. For some reason, I thought it would be easier to keep my wattage up with a headwind, but it actually felt harder! During this one, I was thinking about stopping after just two, but I continued on. I did the next two on Chapparal, Purple Sage, and Edna back to Chapparal. Each one barely weaker than the previous one, but all close enough to consider they all met my target. I was surprised at how much they hurt considering yesterday wasn’t that hard of a workout.
To keep my TSS up for the rest of the ride I rode back in high Level 3 (Tempo) zone. After doing those LTs, at least Tempo felt easy. I still had to fight the wind on the way back so when I got home I spun easy on the rollers for fifteen minutes. Even though it wasn’t a long workout, I definitely felt it’s impact! My body felt thrashed afterwards…but in a good, endorphin-high, kind of way!