Wouldn’t you know it? After yesterday’s walk in the park, today I put in the hardest training ride since Day One. Now, that’s not counting the road race at Valley of the Sun, but as far as a training rides Intensity Factor (IF) for a given duration, today’s ride is on top. Even surpassing that “magical” 5×20 ride I did way back in November. It’s funny, because this morning I wasn’t feeling like I had much in me. I still felt kind of fatigued from Sunday’s rides. But after getting on the bike and doing my usual 5-minute LT push, the power was there so I decided to do a VO2 workout. I ended up doing six and a half, 5-minute VO2 intervals at 115% of my FTP. The “half” interval came from starting one on a road that had a traffic light. I was gambling that I’d hit it green, but I lost!

The intervals went well, although VO2 intervals always hurt, especially the last three minutes! After that I threw in a couple sprints then rode easy to El Paso and did an LT interval up it, just to get an idea of how long it takes when going at threshold. I rested after that effort then put it in tempo-mode for the rest of the ride. I stopped at Purple Sage golf course to refill on water, but got back on my bike as quick as possible and resumed my tempo. I slowly increased the pressure and the last 20 minutes I was approaching my Level 3/4 border. It hurt, but in that good, I’m getting stronger, kind of way! Total ride time was 3:13 with 250 TSS with an intensity factor of .88! That was one tough ride!