Training?!?

I'm at home this week in my ol' hometown of Mineral Point. I'm housesitting a beautiful house for an old boss of mine and taking care of her two cats and pomeranian dog (pics). I brought my work with me so I can keep trucking away on my laptop. This is the sort of ideal situation that freelancing makes possible. I brought both my mountain bike and Cale's cross bike (moonlighting as my road bike) to get a little training in. I'm planning on going out to Blue Mound state park this weekend for some gnarly singletrack, but until then I've been using hilly M.P. as my training grounds.

SOOOooo yesterday I did hill repeats. I went from the valley to Ridge Street, so named because it's on the top of the ridge that runs through town. I have no idea how many feet of climbing it was, but it was quality- a very sharp standing, off-the-saddle climb of two blocks, a seated block, a standing block and then 3 seated blocks that leveled out toward the top, for a little cool down. I'm very strong climbing when seated, but I get tired quickly when standing, so it's been a goal of mine to make my 'second set of legs' stronger. This hill was great because it worked both sets of muscles, one after the other, while giving the other a little time to recuperate.

In any case, it sure tuckered me out, and I was out there for about 45 min. I'm pretty proud because I started out with a goal of five, and pushed myself to do eight. I felt pretty decent, too, and my recovery time was just right- I would cruise to the bottom of the hill (laying on the brakes as hard as I could- the bottom of the hill was very steep), turn around and then tackle it again. I only sprinted the last time, but kept the rest at a good pace. I'm more interested in improving endurance and recovery times for mountain biking than I'm looking to improve my sprint. It was a good night to be out, and I had a good time.

next up in the training regimen: