Another warm day here in the Treasure Valley so I set out to do a long ride. I was initially planning to go west to Emmett Rd. Then head over to Emmett Valley and head west to Horseshoe Bend. That would have been about a four hour ride. But on my way out, I could feel the fatigue in my legs from yesterday’s short, but intense, workout. So as I was heading west on Beacon Light, I decided to just do a straight Emmett-Horseshoe Bend loop.

After 10 minutes of fairly easy spinning, I kicked it into Tempo territory and kept it there most of the ride. I pushed it on the longer hills just a little past threshold. It was fairly warm on the way up Hwy 16 and through Emmett. But once I got into Black Canyon, it was much colder, probably in the low 40’s. That’s not too bad, but I dressed for the 55° weather back in the valley and the headwind didn’t help. But since I was working it, my core stayed fairly warm and I continued to push it though the canyon.

I refilled my bottles at Horseshoe Bend then headed up the “Old” road. Climbing that steady grade I could feel my legs begin to really fatigue. At this point I was real glad I didn’t do the longer option! I pushed it as much as I could up the hill but with a headwind and a 23 biggest cog, it was a grind. Even though the average wattage was the same as last time up this hill, my time was four minutes slower!

I tried to continue pushing it down the hill all the way to Floating Feather, but my power was really dwindling at this point. It finally did get warmer as I descended back into the valley. Since there was no chance for a record time, I spun easy for the 10 minutes to my house. But even after yesterday’s workout, it still was a hard workout. My normalized power was 249 watts; two watts higher than my record ride in October! But since I bumped up my FTP twice since then, it only was 86% of my FTP (not 91%). But not having gone long in a while, I was starting to bonk towards the end and my legs were really hurting. Once I got home, I pounded a fruit shake and then had some of Heather’s awesome low-fat chocolate cookies. Yum!