Monday, May 25, 2009

Mountain Ride in Boone

As if Climbing Mt. Mitchell on Monday wasn't enough torture for the week, I took a day trip to Boone, NC for more climbing with LL and Mark D. on Saturday. I had done a couple of hard training days on Thursday and Friday, although I didn't do anything too serious - a little threshold work and some SST.

We did a 36 mile loop twice that included the Snake Mountain climb used in the annual Blood, Sweat and Gears century ride. We pushed this climb really hard both times. The second time up Snake I averaged 349 watts for the final 10 minutes, which pretty much used up all I had in the tank. Thankfully there is a nice 10 mile gradual descent after the climb.

The original plan called for a third climb of Snake Mountain, but after lap two we all agreed to end the ride and get some Mexican food.

On Sunday I did a short 1 hour easy ride on my TT bike. I haven't been on that stupid thing since last October, so it was a shock. Also I got rained on. I'm gonna ride the TT bike just enough so that the state championship 40K TT in a couple of weeks is possible.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

gradual descent?
is the pavement nice and pockmarked w/ gravel everywhere too? good.

Jay said...

Yeah, it's actually a steep descent for the first part, but I think I remember it becoming more gradual with better pavement later.

We had to dodge cows in the road on the first lap. That made it interesting.