IMPROVISE

A morning ride to Snow Basin - Go'in Home

Improvising

This has been a year of short......everything.  Road miles are not stacking up, but they are all "quality" miles for the most part.  Morning climbs to Snow Basin should be significantly faster, but my climbing is less than par.  This is a ride I should be doing, with a dip into Mountain Green, fast enough to still get to the office later in the morning (58 miles of climbing).  I really need to hit Monte Cristo and make the trip into Woodruff.  Those are big miles and a ton of commitment.  Gotta do it, and soon

Riding Racks

I think the shortest road ride for the season is 41 miles, but still only one century - so far.  I've been trying variations of interval rides, with road sprints, mountain climbs and even some combination intervals. Back "in the day" (about 40 years ago), I'd walk over to the high school and kick footballs until I couldn't take it anymore.  Most nights I'd run stadium bleachers, or what I'd call "racks".  One rack was once across a set of seats and stairs, from south to north.  First rack was seat sprints, with five climbs being a rack.  The next two racks were left foot and then right foot seat hops, followed by two-foot hops.  Then a rack of left diagonals, followed by right diagonals. Being at the opposite end from where I started, it would be full out seat sprints back.  Basically six-by-five with variations.  Those stairs are long gone, not that I could do that anymore.  Rather, I do a bike variation, riding a 200 foot climb over one-half mile (an average of 7.5%, with a peak of about 13%).  Using an interval timer, I'll "sprint" for 20 seconds, maintain a normal cadence for 40 seconds and repeat.  I can generally get five intervals per climb, and will do it six times (six racks).  Still, my legs aren't strong enough to push my heart rate above the low 160's.  Last night I did 10 hill climbs on my mountain bike, then headed up to Mules Ear to finish off.  I started too late, and had to head back as it was getting too dark to see the trail. At that, I still couldn't get my heart rate up to an anaerobic condition.  I've gotta try something else, but I also need to start stacking (long miles).

Time to move along

I think it's time to pull the plug on the Jersey idea fro this year.  The late start has pretty much everyone saying the same thing; "all corporate donations where committed several months ago".  I still think this is the way to go, but just not with the time we were left with this year.  Time to start focusing on necessities.  With all the side job commitments I've had this year, it wasn't the best idea to try so much, with no time to spare.

I'd like to get get out on some dirt tomorrow, but again........commitments.

Almost fitting - "Wheels" ugh! click here

Ride HARD