.....They don't fall down. That's how I felt last night. I felt like I was on another level last night than I have been of late, and I was pushing it so hard during bike practice that I almost passed out! I did a little bit of everything during my 2.5 hour ride starting with a nice warm up, which didn't take much considering that it seemed pretty warm and humid and I was sweating buckets just cruising along at 18mph. After my warm up I was on my favorite long, flat stretch of road ready to start my 6x3min PowerIntervals, but this time I cut down my recovery time from a 1:1 ratio to a 3:2 ratio, only resting for 2 minutes instead of the full 3 minutes. I was flying along, HR maxed out for the first 5 and feeling great. I was on to my 6th one and hammering and I figured I was going to try to take it even higher so I started sprinting the last 30 seconds and was about 5 seconds from finishing when I went totally hypoxic and started seeing the little sparkle fairies floating around my head. I was close to falling over but slowed down enough to recover and keep it upright. Back in my old days of training I would do intervals until my head fell off or I threw up in my mouth, then I knew it was a good day of intervals. Now I guess instead of throwing up, I know it's a good day if I almost pass out. Well, that's probably not good, but boy did it feel good. Anyways, after that I took off towards my favorite long climb by Muskego and figured I'd do a few repeats, and would try to better my PR, which was 2min 28sec. Well, on the first one I broke my PR by 6 seconds so I decided that the rest of the repeats would go a little easier. I did a couple more and on the 3rd one, another rider/racer (looked the part of a racer) showed up to do repeats as well and it just happened that I was finishing my recovery as he started his first one. I've never ridden up the hill with anyone else, so I don't have a gauge of how fast my time really is so I figured this would be a good time to see how I compare to someone else who looks like they have the ability to go fast. Well, I started about 10 seconds behind him and caught and passed him pretty easily about half way up, so it turned out that he either wasn't as good as I thought or my time up that climb is actually decent. Who knows, I felt good though so that's all that matters. After that it was an easy 30 minutes home and I downed a huge plate of stir-fry that my wife made.....whole grain rice, fresh vegetables, and lean cuts of steak, it was the best she's ever made so I was quite happy.
Well, as for the rest of the week, tonight is iffy with the rain but it appears that it's going to hold off so if it does I'll be doing 2.25 hours to Whitnall, down to Franklin, and back. It's one of my favorite Endurance pace courses, nice and wooded, quite a bit of it on the bike path and there is always lots of people to keep it interesting. Tomorrow will be about 90 minutes with a couple of PowerIntervals to open up the legs and then it's off to Whitewater for a crit on Saturday and a RR on Sunday.
After that I get a much needed vacation from work, and the family and I will be heading to Governor Dodge State Park for a week of camping. My days will be spent laying on the beach, kayaking, hiking, and cooking over the camp fire. Oh yeah, and biking! I'll be doing 3-5 hours Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday early in the morning while the family is at the beach and then I'll join them in the afternoon where I'll recover by laying on a raft in the lake. I'll do that beautiful climb up Blue Mounds probably twice over the 3 days and of course there are plenty of other climbs to keep me breathing hard. It'll be like a vacation and a mini hill-training camp all in one. Well, that's it for now, until next time...........
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