09/16/13

Last Sunday Lifesport had a client ride with three loops from McDowell Road to Power, around Bush Highway and over Usery Pass back to McDowell Road.  The loops included a set of pretty hard intervals while going up to the top of Usery Pass -- 8 minutes at an Aerobic pace, 6 minutes at Lactate Threshold and 1 minute of all-out give it everything you have maximum effort!  Very hard!  I was surprised at the end to see that we had gone 67 miles, only 23 miles short for the UMCA Mileage Challenge credit!  Hmmmm....  This weekend the same ride was planned, but I decided I wanted UMCA credit for the ride, especially after putting all that effort into those intervals, so I rode an extra loop -- but I didn't do intervals on that last one!.

We had a small group at the start (I think there were 12 people) and Jeff kept a nice easy pace going up Brown Road, down Ellsworth to the start of the loops.  He maintained an easy pace going down Power and up Queen Kong.  Just after the top of that climb, Deb Fox flatted.  I had two flats last weekend.  Something put a nice gash in my rear tire and luckily Barry Reger stayed back with me and gave me a clif bar wrapper to use as a boot.  So I know how nice it is to have someone along just in case.  It's a good thing I stayed back because Deb had some trouble with her CO2 pump and didn't get enough air in the tire, so I loaned her my CO2 pump to finish the job.  We got going again and saw several cars stopped with people out taking pictures at some horses.  We didn't stop to check for brands, but the only reason I can think of that people would be stopping to take pictures is if they were wild horses, which is a pretty rare sight.  Debbie and I took it easy to the turn up Usery, then I started my intervals. I was about two minutes from finishing my Lactate Threshold effort when Jeff and some others looped back to check on us and re-group. 

The second and third loops went pretty good, although I was starting to feel the effects of all that effort and only got about 45 seconds at max effort before I popped on the last interval!  We also stopped at a Diamond Shamrock gas station to refill bottles after the second loop.  When we got back down to McDowell after the third loop I turned to start my last loop and the rest of the group headed back down Usery to Brown.  After riding with the group, it was kind of nice just to go at my own pace for a while.  I tried to stay Aerobic going up Usery and turned on McDowell again on the way back to ensure I would get over the 90 mile mark.  Finished with 91.7 miles. Click on the thumbnail to see my Polar chart.