Heather & Uhl Albert

Hard Ride with Company

Uhl in Eagle, ID – Today was one of those super-clear days you only get once in a while. With foothills still a shade of green I just had to take some pictures. So I went up to the roof to take some shots (I also had to adjust the skylight cover, so it wasn't the only reason I climbed up there!). But as you can see, the view was amazing. You could really see Shafer Butte and the surrounding mountains at Bogus Basin.

So with such a picturesque scene right out my office window, I was giddy with excitement to go on my one o'clock ride. I managed to get a couple teammates to join me; Todd and Jim. The route was Emmett–Horseshoe Bend and my plan was to ride it as I usually do: LT up Hwy 16, Tempo through Black Canyon and then leave anything I had left on the climb up Old Horseshoe Bend Road.

I pretty much managed to stick to that plan but I ended up pushing harder than I wanted up Hwy 16 with a 24-minute interval at 311 watts! Then when we started rotating through Black Canyon I knew I was in trouble. The road was awesome with very little traffic but the tailwind we had seemed to die toward the end. My legs would hurt quickly during my pulls and I wonderd if I'd even make it up Horseshoe Bend Hill!? We stopped at the Chevron to fill our bottles with some much needed ice water; it was getting downright hot! And, no, that's not a complaint...just a statement of fact! Remember, I love the hot weather! BTW, this pic is of the north horizon from Eagle. It shows (in the distance) the direction we rode. That peak to the left is Sqauw Butte, just north of Emmett. We rode right in front of as we entered Black Canyon.

Then up Horseshoe Bend Hill I started out okay, but about halfway up ran out of gas. The first fifteen minutes I averaged 276 watts, then the remaining 14 minutes I only averaged 256...for a slowish time of 28:53. We re-grouped at the top then finished it off strong with some good rotation the flats. By the time I reached home I was cooked! As I stopped at our mailbox to get the mail I clipped out with my right leg and it immediately cramped! Yup, that first long ride in the heat always seems to bring on the cramps. Fortunately I was able to stretch it out and keep it at bay. It helped that I had no more riding to do. Poor Todd, he had to ride back to Boise making his ride about 20 miles longer than Jim's and mine.

Another Close One

Uhl in Eagle, ID – Did another sprint workout today and came within 30 watts of my best 13-second mean maximal power (MMP)! Cool! Okay, so I admit that I haven't done a ton of 10-second or longer sprints in the past, but it's still fun to track it. Today it was really windy out but with a sprint workout, it didn't really matter. Actually, it was nice to do some standing-start sprints into a headwind then do a few with a tailwind. The weather looks like it'll really warm up over the next couple days and I'm looking forward to it. I love hot weather...at least out here where it's a "dry" heat. It doesn't come with the humidity that I remember from the summers of my youth growing up in New York.

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Longest Ride of Year (so far)

Uhl in Eagle, ID – Even though it was sunny as forecasted, it was still chilly when I headed out at 10:00 AM. I headed west from Reed Cycle and was helped along with a strong tailwind. My legs still felt tired but I was hoping they would feel better as I warmed up.

I kept it easy for the first hour then gradually picked it up. My legs never came around, but by the time I turned into the headwind there was no choice but to ride harder. Nothing like a strong headwind to keep you in Tempo/LT range. Even though my legs felt weak the entire ride the last couple hours I was putting out some decent wattage.

The smells of spring were in the air, especially up Old Freezeout. The yellow wildflowers were in bloom, creating nice yellow patches on the side of the hillside. But they also brought with them a strong sent and I'm sure, a lot of pollen. The temperature picked up as I headed down Hwy 16 into Eagle, where it finally felt neutral (not too hot, not too cold). On Beacon Light I bumped into a small group of fellow Lost River riders we chatted for a little bit then I broke off. I was wasted when I got home and have been pounding the liquids and calories. At 3 hours 42 minutes it ended up being my longest ride of the year. Usually by this time I would have done a few 4-5 hour rides. But it's not a big deal as I'm shooting for good form later in the year than past seasons.

So Close

Uhl in Eagle, ID – I went out today just to get some more tempo time. Tomorrow will be an easy day so I can do some long hard rides on the weekend so today was an "anything goes' type ride. I basically rode low tempo most of the time but decided to spice it up with some sprints.

I did one after a fast downhill to get my speed up and found that it works great for doing a long sprint; resistance stays high so no shifting necessary. Once I got home I downloaded my ride and found that I came so close to breaking my best mean maximal power (MMP) for the 9–12 second range! Not bad considering my legs were still feeling a bit weak.

After that I was done with sprints and just rode an erratic tempo pace home. It was a bit cool and windy out but no rain today. So far the weather looks good for Saturday when I plan to do long hard ride.

Small Success

Uhl in Eagle, ID – Yesterday I rode outside hoping to do a solid workout but my body didn't cooperate and I had to abort. So I tried again today, this time on the rollers. It was super windy out and it was trying to rain on our commute home so I wanted to play it safe.

When I started riding my legs didn't agree with the plan but after ten minutes they felt better. I warmed up for an unusually long (for me) 20 minutes then did a set of 2x20's. Even though my legs were somewhat weak, I pushed through the intervals with help from more Tour of Turkey coverage and my tunes. The wattage for my intervals was decent which made it a small but uplifting success after yesterday's abortion. Now I plan to have a couple easier days and shoot for some epic rides for the weekend. I need to continue my CTL's upward trend!

Another Good One

Uhl in Eagle, ID – Another stellar spring day and I decided to hit the Emmett–Horseshoe Bend Loop again. This time I added some structure to my ride doing a 20-minute LT on the way up Highway 16, then a 45-minute Tempo session through Black Canyon and finally pushed it up Old Horseshoe Bend Road climb. Even though I still felt a little residual fatigue in my legs from Thursday's ride and a good sprint workout yesterday, I was able to crank out the power and nearly break my arbitrary 3-hour target for the ride. If I didn't have to wind through the subdivision due to the construction on Floating Feather, I think I would have achieved it.

The weather was perfect with deep blue skies and a light northwest wind. By the last hour of the ride it was getting pretty warm, but I still wouldn't call it hot. Coming down Highway 55 off of Old Horseshoe Bend Hill, it started to rain on me! It was very strange as there were only a few coulds hanging over Bogus Basin and nearby mountains, the rest of the sky was blue!? But the rain was short-lived; it only lasted halfway through that false flat by the new Avimor development going in. I also made sure I ate enough today and it seemed to help as I didn't bonk like I did on Thursday. My legs were hurting by the end of the ride but I was still able to put out the power.

Beautiful Emmett–Horseshoe Bend Loop

Uhl in Eagle, ID – One of the advantages of working from home is that I can go for a "real" ride during the afternoon and continue working in the evening, as was the case today. Saving the 1-hour total I'd spend commuting I can put to doing a longer ride.

With a northwest wind I decided to do the Emmett–Horseshoe Bend loop. I never get bored of that route! The scenery was spectacular as it was super-clear out and the landscape is really greeen right now (for Boise). Come June and it will turn the yellow-brown color indicative of the desert we live in.

I treated the ride as a tempo workout, going as hard as I thought I could for the 3+ hours it usually takes me. This plan worked for about 1 hour 55 minutes, at which point I started to bonk and my legs became really weak. I could only manage 260 watts up Old Horseshoe Bend hill and that was a struggle. Fortunately after it was mostly downhill and tailwind after that. Even though my workout stats aren't astronomical the ride definitely kicked my butt!

Another DNF

Uhl in Eagle, ID – Well another "DNF" today (did not finish). But this time I managed to last two out of the three laps. The laps were the old-style laps where we went up Little Freezeout, made a right on Hollow, another right on El Paso and then turned onto Bill Burns...a gravel road.

Yeah I'm a little bummed as my goal was to finish today, but my power data proved it was still a good performance for me. I even nearly broke my 1.5 min best...of all time!? I also confirmed my FTP with a 1-hour normalized power of 303 watts somewhere during all the chaos. Another good note was my teammate Kenny ended up 6th! Way to go Kenny!

Full results on Spondoro.com:
http://www.spondoro.com/results/Roubaix/2008/results.pdf

Pleasant Ride

Uhl in Eagle, ID – I went on a nice ride today with Dan and Brent. With the Emmett-Roubaix race tomorrow, I didn't want to do anything too long or too hard so riding with a couple non-racer types was perfect. We chatted a lot...mostly me spewing about training with a power meter.

We headed out west towards Middleton then came back on Purple Sage. On the way back we saw a cool dust devil. We ended up stopping so could take a crappy picture with my Treo camera-phone. Most of the ride was at a JRA pace (just riding along) but on the way back I did my typical pre-race pushes on Beacon light. The pushes felt good and I'm excited to maybe have some semblance of form for tomorrow's race!

Microintervals are Hard

Uhl in Eagle, ID – With limited time between a couple work meetings, I was only able to do an hour ride on the rollers, but I made it a good one. I did 2x20's with ten minutes of 30-second microintervals on the first one. Man, did I forget how much those hurt! Maybe I was shooting too high; 450 watts during the "on" portions, then about 200 "off". It's funny how 30 seconds feels so long during the "on" portions, yet all too short during the "off" portions! Either way I finished it and ended up with a respectable 304 watts average.

The second interval I just did steady-state. I was watching the Tour of Turkey on Cycling.tv with tunes in the background. Turkey has some really nice terrain...some of it reminds me of Utah and Idaho. Well, except for when they rode along the azure-blue Mediterranean Sea. No beaches like that around here! The second interval wasn't too bad but it took some mental effort to keep my wattage up. The race footage and tunes helped a lot.

More of the Same

Uhl in Eagle, ID – Same lactate threshold (LT) workout as usual. Well, almost the same...power is going up!

Trainer Time

Uhl in Eagle, ID – The weather kept me indoors again today but for a change of pace I decided to ride my trainer instead of my rollers. While my Kurt Kinetic has a great feel to it's resistance, having the bike locked into a static position doesn't feel quite right to me, that's why I've always gravitated towards rollers. But sometimes you just want to ride and not worry about riding off the edge while watching cycling videos with twisty descents!

The other benefit is it's much easier to stand for long periods on a trainer (to relieve saddle pressure). Something you take for granted when riding outside. I was hoping my legs would be up for a harder workout than yesterday, but it ended up about the same. I did a couple of 20-minute LT intervals at the low end of L4. The intervals felt fine, but I could feel the residual fatigue in my legs from my recent training.

Back Indoors

Uhl in Eagle, ID – After warm weather teaser on Thursday, this weekend it's back to the cold spring we've gotten used to. So I jumped on the rollers for an inddor workout. I didn't have a set plan; I just wanted to get at least on hour on the bike with maybe some tempo work. I warmed up while getting some Cycling.tv video queued up. After a 20 minutes of warming up I started a block of tempo work. But as it did on Thursday, my wattage started creeping up. So by the end of the 45-minutes I had really done mostly LT wattage, without even trying that hard.

LT/Tempo work in Spring Weather

Uhl in Eagle, ID – I was able to ride outside today as the weather was downright balmy. It got up to a whopping 70°F...man, do I like warm weather! I did a nice little 2-hour ride with one 45-minute tempo session, followed by a 23-minute LT interval.

My legs were a little heavy from yesterday's workout, and they felt slightly better after some easy spinning. But as I started my tempo interval, I felt even better and my wattage kept creeping up and up that by the last 21 minutes, I was deep into L4 territory. In fact, I just recorded it in my training diary as an LT interval and not the 45-minute tempo interval, originally planned.

By the time I started the "true" LT interval later in the ride it was harder to produce the same wattage but I managed to keep it within range. When I got home I had that nice "wasted" feeling, evidence of the good, hard workout I had just done. With the warm weather and the solid workout, this was one of my best rides in a long while.

2x20's Coming Around

Uhl in Eagle, ID – After a semi-hard weekend I took a couple days completely off only to return to my standard LT workout today. My legs felt great without any "packing up." The wattage was really good, especially on the second interval, and they weren't that mentally tough to achieve. Hopefully a sign of good things to come!?

No Chicken Dinner for You

Uhl in Eagle, ID – Even though yesterday's workout was encouraging, between my lack of real top-end power and some work I had to get done at the office, I decided to pass on the Chicken Dinner road race today. If it was a flat course, I probably could have hung on for a while, but I knew with the steep climb every lap and the strong winds, I would have been off the back in a matter of minutes.

It's nice to have a power meter to back this decision up: I know for a fact that the 337 watts VO2 power I was putting out yesterday would not have been enough to keep me with the main group. So chalk this one up as my first "DNS" of the season (Did Not Start). Maybe if I get all these acronyms out of the way early in the season, there'll be less of them later?!

Bees are Buzzing

Uhl in Eagle, ID – It finally feels like spring outside and the bees are out in full force. Seems like the snow the other day didn't affect our apricot blossom's attractiveness. There were plenty of honey bees gathering fresh nectar. We'll see if the blossoms survive and hopefully give us some apricots this year!

Better VO2 Workout

Uhl in Eagle, ID – After a few days of rest and recovery rides, I decided to attempt another VO2 workout. The last time I did them was back on the aborted team ride on March 22. The weather was warm today and I was feeling pretty good so I figured it was time for another try.

I headed out Beacon Light and started my intervals as I approached Hwy 16. I managed to get three in before I had to make the turn on Chaparral then I did one more. I was just shooting for around 320–330, but riding outside the wattage was jumping around a bit so I didn't know how I was doing.

Sometimes I peak at my average wattage towards the end the intervals but today I did them without any feedback. I didn't even use the lap feature and just started and stopped my intervals based on the ride time. 4 minuts on, 3 minutes off. I wanted do 5, but after four my legs were shot. After downloading the ride I was amazed at how consistent I was! Each interval was within 4 watts of each other...how's that for consistency!

Oh no...snow!

Uhl in Eagle, ID – Just when it seemed like spring was on it's way, it snowed this morning! This could be really bad as our apricot tree was already starting to bloom. Hopefully the blossoms were still undeveloped enough the snow didn't hurt them. But we're not getting our hopes up since we have yet to harvest any apricots. Seems like it's always the first tree to blossom yet the most fragile when the inevitable late spring frost comes. The other trees are hardier and will typically produce a good amount of fruit each year. We'll see...