Even though I originally thought Bogus would be my last race of the year, Heather and I are considering going down to Ogden, Utah for the Mountain to Metro Criterium (formerly Harvest Moon) on September 27. So in preparation for a crit after weeks of climbing work, I did a couple Tabata intervals today. Man, I keep forgetting how hard they are! I was coughing up a lung after the first six-minute set. I then rode easy for ten minutes and foolishly, did a second set.

The second time around I thought I’d sandbag the first two or three 20-second sprints by staying seated and then standing for the initial jumps of the remaining sprints. Ha! Fat lot of good that did! Having a weak 1st and 2nd effort just lowered my average power because my last three were just as weak as the first set!

After I analyzed the data, I realized it wasn’t that bad; my average power was better than both the Tabata workouts I did in July and the second set was fairly close to the best one in July. After the Tabatas I did some sprints but they were wimpy, but I should have expected that. Most the rest of the time I was easily putting out mid- to high-tempo wattage…which was nice. The weather was perfect and it was great to be outside.