Yesterday (short interval day) started with a small breakfast, coffee, and Ryan telling me “your legs are starting to look less fat”  (like most men, he’s got quite the way with words).

I headed out around 6:15 for a half hour warmup before looping back to my pain cave- Lenow Rd. It’s not far from my house, and for this workout, is the best place I’ve got around here other than the long, flat river road in Shelby Forest (a solid 45 minute drive from my house). The workout is one I’ve written about on here before- 3 repeats of an 8 minute interval that starts in zone 3 and ends in zone 5. Despite my struggle to recover from heat exhaustion and dehydration on Sunday, I was feeling pretty froggy.

I generally felt great and seemed to be hitting my usual power numbers pretty easily, but once I was back home looking at Training Peaks, it seemed I hadn’t done quite as well as in the past. I also didn’t feel nearly as tired as I usually do. Not really sure what happened there, but coach & I ended up revising the day so that my second ride included some 1 min all-out efforts.

Me Gusta.

Today, the intervals were longer- two 20 min race pace efforts on the single speed. I took to the Tour D’ Wolf Trail since it’s got just enough small roller hills to keep the heart rate up.

Side note: a lot of locals HATE the TDW trail. It’s in the middle of a huge public park, and the trails are overused/abused on a regular basis. They’re rutted, mudholed, and re-routed enough times to be 10 feet wide in a lot of areas. However, I like things that are historically significant to the things that interest me. That trail was once the site for one of the biggest MTB races in the US. Some of the fastest mountain bikers from that era (the last TDW race was in 2001) have touched their tires upon that ground. Knowing that adds motivation to my ride.

I felt great again. Now I’ve got an afternoon spin and two recovery rides before the next two days of long distance heat torture this weekend.