Intervals ... by choice not desire...

With only 8 weeks until my attempt at a sub 5 hour century, I've got to make more time for consistent training. Last week my mileage was under 100 miles for the whole week...sigh. 

So the plan was to get up early Monday morning and get out for a long ride because Sat's ride was cut short by the rain. But instead - I was up late watching a movie with my oldest son the night before and got to bed late, got up late, ... but still forced myself to get out for a higher intensity ride. That was my plan.

I ended up doing 7 intervals that were HR based: going until 165 or higher and then recovering until my HR was under 140. It was usually ~1 minute of hard and 1:20 of recovery. The hr's were 166, 171, 167, 172, 172, 168, 167. I then rode the last 2 miles on the dam at a steady pace ~22 mph with an avg HR of 157.

I'm also trying to make myself ride hard up Mountain creek for the hill there. The quickest is under 2 minutes but normally it's around 2 minutes: today it was 2:18 with a max HR of 176. The total time was 48 minutes for the 14.6 miles -- avg ~18 mph. It was a good work out this morning and my thighs were a little sore this afternoon, so I'm pretty sure I pushed hard at times.

Tomorrow evening will be the hard fast group ride. I am always totally spent after that ride: it's the hardest ride of my week - with out question! I'll see how the gel and energy bloks help with sustaining my energy. It's like an experiment as I try different things at different times in different quantities. Lots of variables.