Just a couple more weeks...

As is evident in my last few posts, the end of the season is just around the corner. The end of the racing season means a lot of different things to us right now, but foremost in my mind is there aren't any more chances to pull out a good race. With that in mind I have been trying to put a little something extra in my training. Likely, yesterday's workout is the last super hard effort. I need rest before the races.

Just a recap of this week's work, Wednesday we hit it hard on Rainbow with a double loop of the lollipop. Tough ride with me pulling most of the time, according to my Garmin we averaged 20mph for 1hr. Thursday we backed up that hard effort with another one, doing 3min efforts up Rancho Cal. In order to help us deal with the heat I gave us 1.5x recovery between intervals. After four of those, and some recovery, we did a 9+ minute force interval up the hill, recovered across the top and on the descent, and then did a solid 6min Z4 effort up the backside. On the descent back down the frontside I did a legspeed drill and held 130rpm for a really long time (fun stuff descending at 50mph!).

Last weekend was interesting. The three day weekend gave us a chance to do two hard days and one easy one. Saturday we got up and hit a fairly easy road ride in the morning.



Followed that up with a good breakfast and a trip to OC to take care of some errand stuff. After the errands it was super hot but we hit up a hard Whiting Ranch - Luge ride. I can't believe how fast we busted that ride out!



I am not sure when Allison got this picture of me in front of her on Santiago Truck Trail. She was blazing fast!



I caught Allison doing her thing right before we took off down Luge!



I jumped out ahead so that I could get a shot of her descending...





It seems like I used to go faster down Luge, but it isn't any less fun!



The ride was a solid 1hr 20mins. I think the high temps really sucked the life out of us though as we were tapped out for such a short duration. We headed home to have a good dinner and rest up. Sunday we decided on a nice easy ride up around Lake Elsinore. Nice and flat.







After our morning ride we made the trek down to San Diego to meet up with my cousin Karen, her son Ben, and my sister. We went over to La Jolla and wandered around a bit.









Sunday we hit up some of our favorite Idyllwild trails with Luke. The three of us climbed Keen Camp together.





After some single track descending it was back to climbing up May Valley road. What a beautiful day. The views were outstanding.





I cleaned some new spots on the Lower Southridge Single Track that I didn't think I would ever get (although I could see the lines, they are hard to get to and have the right power/balance on). I couldn't have imagined a better day of riding, except maybe being able to hold onto Luke and Allison's wheels as they took off up the big climb to Cherry on the Top! Thats okay though, I was tearing up the technical stuff and the descending!

Allison got a good sequence, the following three photos were me having some fun on the rocks.







We then rode some (new to me) trails that are part of the long course at the Idyllwild Spring Challenge. Great trails for sure! After dropping back to the 24hr. course via Missing Link I stopped to get a few shots of Luke and Allison.





And Allison returned the favor nabbing a final parting shot of me at the bottom of the 24hr course.



Good stuff! Have a great weekend!