Since we had our team photo shoot today, our elite team ride ended up starting out with the greater Lost River Cycling contingent. We headed towards Middleton, then we broke off and did some race simulation. Someone would attack and go up the road, we’d let them establish a gap, then the rest of the riders would work together to chase them down. It was a good exercise as the first few were complete clusters. People would chase so hard as to break the chasing group apart. But some practice, we eventually started to work like a team. On Old Hwy 30 it was my turn and I went solo doing a 5-minute VO2 effort at 351 watts, then settled into high threshold for the remainder. I lasted out there for only 7:41, but it was good interval.

At Hamilton Corner we made a right into a nasty headwind. We had a good rotating paceline going, but since we had 8 riders, there was too much rest for me to stay in my tempo zone. So I went off the front again for a nice little 9 minute interval. After that I tried to take a bit longer pulls to keep my wattage up. We had a pit stop in Emmett, and half the people went back to Eagle, whereas Heather and I headed on towards Horseshoe Bend with Kelsey and Henry. At this point we had been in the saddle for over three hours and my legs were feeling the earlier efforts, so I was content with the moderate paceline we were doing into Horseshoe Bend.

We filled up on water again at Horseshoe Bend and I thought I’d have enough gas left to do a good LT interval up the hill. I started at the cattle guard as usual, and slowly worked into my threshold zone. Things were looking good until the halfway point where my wattage plummeted. For the first half I was doing almost 290 watts, but by the time I was nearing the top I could barely muster 240 watts…I was bonking hard! It didn’t help that we had a strong headwind up the climb. I was the first to the top which was a good thing as I just got off the bike, plopped down then rested while the remainder of the group arrived. Heather wasn’t too far behind me so she seems to be getting in shape. I ate my last bar and drank a bunch of water, hoping I could get out of my bonk.

After we all had a chance to rest, we took a couple pictures then headed downhill. You would think this would be the best part, but the wind was so strong that even on the downhill we had to pedal fairly hard. I was so glad to finally make it to Floating Feather where Heather and I turned off and rode easy back to our house. This was the longest ride of this season for me and I definitely felt it. I was glad I tried to make the first part of the ride hard on purpose because I ended up with an intensity factor (IF) of .81. Group rides typically kill my IF because of all the easy spinning and drafting going on. But today was definitely a tough day in the saddle!