A real workout! And because of the excellent weather I got to ride my race bike. Boom. And I did it with my team! And by 'team' I of course mean two other guys.
I met Greg Kauper and Tony Bravetti in Bothell at 7:30 and we proceeded to systematically ride most of the hills up here.
NOTE - there are a lot of hills near Bothell! And most of them are not short.
It was a great day. Why? Well let me tell you.
- The weather was fabulous.
- I felt good. Like really good. Not sure if it was the bike or because I took it easy yesterday but I like this feeling.
- The company was awesome.
- Did I mention I was on my light bike?
- We set out to ride 10 solid hills and with a minimum of fuzzy math we accomplished this goal.
- I was completely dorked out in all my technology so I had speed, heart rate and power.
As we rode Greg and I were both commenting on how we used to think Juanita Drive was a good hill to train on. HA. It's freaking busy, boring, you are breathing car exhaust and you're constrained to the shoulder. On all the hills we rode up today there were hardly any cars, it was super scenic, the air was fume-free and we frequently took up the entire right lane. Nice.
The first hill was very leisurely except Greg was in a monster gear/the big ring the entire way up… On the second hill he was having shifting problems (perhaps why he rode the big ring the first time?) and after hearing his chain hop and skip and jump about 100 times I finally said let's pull over and fix that shit so we pulled over at the top and checked it out. Turns out he was riding a 9-speed wheel and a 10-speed drivetrain. D'oh…! Greg tried to pin the blame on his wife as she was apparently the one that originally put the cassette on the wheel (and she rides a 10-speed bike as well) but he also said he had tried to adjust the shifting this morning so I was having none of it. :) We all exchanged knowing looks WITHOUT ANY ILL WILL TOWARD ANYONE OF COURSE and carried on.
On hill number three the pace picked up some and then even more on number four but still nothing insane. On hill number five Tony put in an effort at the top on a false flat and it brought out the competitor in Greg who countered with a big surge/sprint to the actual summit. Good times.
Then we backed it off again for a couple but on hill number eight (Juanita from Kirkland) I kept it in the big ring and dialed it up to what I thought I could maintain to the place where we were turning and it was a pretty good effort. From here we dropped down Holmes Point Dr. This is a biggie and we all knew what was coming.
As we started up the hill we were still chatting. Then suddenly Tony says something like, "Here comes the competition…" and as I turn my head I see some guy in a matchy-matchy red and black kit coming up from behind. And then Greg accelerated.
It was a pretty solid acceleration and I had to dig to close him down. Not 100 feet after I caught him he stands up and puts in a full-on attack! Ouch. I was not able to respond immediately so I did my thing and stayed in the saddle and upped my tempo as much as I could. Luckily this was enough to slowly reel Greg in but man did it hurt.
As I caught Greg I figured it was best not to slow down and my 'momentum' carried me until I was next to him. We rode side-by-side for just a bit and then when the road tipped up for the last time and hoping I had not already blown my wad I finally stood up, shifted up and gave it everything. This time I was able to ease away from Greg (or perhaps he just let me go) and we both finished the climb rather out of breath.
Mr. Red was about 10 or 15 seconds behind us and I just know we ruined his day. Which of course made my day. :) Men (and amateur athletes) are so shallow!
I counted Lake City Way and climbing back up to the top of Capitol Hill as hill number 10 but I can promise you that these last inclines were ridden at a much more moderate pace…
Here is my PowerTap data. It's good to see that I can actually get my heart rate up above 160! What's strange is that my max power came on the hill that Greg sprinted for and not Holmes Point; not by a long shot. It's so deceptive how you feel… I was completely pegged chasing Greg up Holmes Point but relatively fresh during that uphill sprint. It just goes to show that you need to be fresh and that a sudden acceleration will always produce more power than an extended bridge or slowly dropping someone. Holmes Point did produce the max heart rate however, no surprise there.
| Sleep | |
| Waking HR | |
| Body Weight | |
| Body Fat | |
| Breakfast | |
| Lunch | |
| Dinner | |
| Workout Food | PowerBar, Odwalla bar, 1.5 large bottles each w/1 tablet Nuun and 2 scoops HEED |
| Injuries | |
| Therapy | |
| Time of Day | 6:30 AM |
| Workout Type | intervals/hills |
| Weather | low 40s to start, upper 50s at the end, sunny, calm, dry |
| Course | |
| Results | |
| Time | |
| Distance | |
| Pace | |
| Equipment | Road Bike |
| Clothing | knit shoe covers, knee warmers, bib shorts, Craft long sleeve undershirt, short sleeve jersey, arm warmers, wind vest, OR Gripper gloves, cap |
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