It's been a hard week

As I was looking at Coach Tim's training calendar for last week, I knew well in advance I was in for sore legs. I was scheduled for hill intervals on Tuesday and power intervals on Thursday. Throw in the grand finale of the climb up Sweetwater on Saturday and you may understand why I chose to sleep in this morning.

Let's start with the hill work on Tuedsay.

Normally, my hill work takes the form of hill repeats. Tim will even suggest which hills to ride. This week was different. This week my goal was to simply go ride hills. Lots of them. After work, I hop on the bike and head to Fountain Grove which is nothing but hills. You are either going up or down. Plus, the selection of hills offers varying lengths and grades. Here are some examples of what I climbed on Tuesday.

• Ridgeview Drive - .75 miles/maximum grade = 19%
• Parker Hill Road - 1.75 miles/maximum grade = 15%
• Cross Creek Road - 1.5 miles/maximum grade = 11%

Of course their were numerous small climbs in between, all with double digit gradients. The end result was a 17-mile ride with 1725 feet of climbing and just as much descending. This means I spent most of ride either going 7 or 40 mph.

Thursday found me riding power intervals in Oakmont in strong winds. Nothing like a little added resistance to make a workout pay off. As workouts go, I find power intervals a little boring but man do they work. I was totally flogged when I finished and I was also feeling the effects of Tuedsya's hill work. Now only one question remains. With all of this hill and power work, will I be stronger for Sweetwater on Saturday?

On Saturday, we were riding a most unusual ride. You see, many of our friends were participating in the Vineman Triathalon in either Barb's Race or the Aquabike. The plan was to ride to Guerneville to watch the swim, race them to Chalk Hill and watch the climb and then race them again to the bike-run transition.

We get a late start and have to hammer the pace from Windsor to Guerneville but still arrived in time to wish Carmen luck. After her swim, we cheered her away from T1 as she heads out on the bike course. In about 45 miles she will reach Chalk Hill along the rolling hills of the Dry Creek and Alexander Valleys. We are taking a more direct route up and over Sweetwater.

I have written about Sweetwater in the past. It is the first hill I had to walk up as my heart rate hit 196. On Saturday, I rode with one of our sprinters, hill climbing is definitely not her specialty, and managed the entire climb in the middle ring with a max heart rate or 168. Things are definitely improving.

The rest of the ride went as planned. We got to Chalk Hill just in time to cheer Carmen over the top. Then we put together a very fast train and beat her to the transition to cheer her on again.

In the end, all of my cylcing friends had great days yesterday in their events. As I think about it, so did I.

So what was my reward for a strong week of training? You guess it. Sleeping in, relaxing and french toast! What a great way to spend a Sunday.

Ciao!