Uhl in Eagle, ID – With a lull in the local road racing scene, I'm considering doing the Coyote Classic mountain bike race this weekend. This race is part of the regional Knobby Tire Series. I used to race mountain bikes a lot more when we lived in Utah, but have only done one or two mountain races a year since moving here. But as I'm working on threshold these few weeks, I figured doing the Coyote Classic would be a great workout and give me a little change of pace from all the road riding.
I set my PowerTap to HR monitor-only mode, and headed out on Hwy 55. Since the new coded strap that came with the PowerTap SL works so well, I figured I should use it. Then I can download the ride, and even though it will only be HR data, I could still look at average HR and time spent in zones and compare it to similar road rides to estimate training stress. I warmed up for a few minutes then put my HR into my tempo zone. Since it's been a while since I've trained with HR, I had forgotten how much lag it has. I've gotten spoiled with the instantaneous nature of power readings. With HR, it takes a minute or two for your HR to catch up to your effort. This is especially annoying for an impatient person like myself!
I mostly rode tempo on the road to the course but I did do a couple "mini" LT intervals on the climbs up Hwy 55. I got to the parking area for the race and had to open the gate to get through (and close it behind me). This is cattle grazing territory and so we were told to leave the gates as we find them when pre-riding the course. Once on the trail it was easy to keep my HR in my tempo zone, of course, the initial climbing of the first loop of the course helped. After not having mountain biked for so long I had forgotten how "slow" it feels for the same effort. I think speed is one of the reasons I like road riding so much. The first loop of the course was marked with orange sprinkler flags so it was fairly easy to follow the course. I did stop a few times and fix some of them as they had fallen down onto the double-track. It was breezy today so it didn't feel too hot but I was drinking quite a bit.