Saturday: ~3hr ride with 13 climbs up escarpment. 12 repeats up hydro hill plus once up Glenridge. The temperature was -14, but with the sun out and no wind it was very pleasant riding conditions. Other than the hill reps I rode some singletrack around Brock and and put in some km's on nearby roads. I chose Hydro to do hill reps on because its a very smooth dirt/gravel road that is plowed, lightly salted and has 0 traffic on it. You may see the occasional Ontario Power car going up, but you will see a lot more walkers, runners and cyclists using it. We are lucky to have this road and I take full advantage of it.
Post ride I hit up the Farmers market and grabbed a bunch of locally grown veggies, some organic rye bread and some apple cider. I am going to try and do all produce shopping there to support our local economy, get fresher stuff and hopefully avoid some pesticides.
Sunday: 3.5hr ride with 16 climbs up escarpment. With the temperature around -7 and a 25km/h wind, I didn't feel like riding open roads and opted to go to hydro again and do some reps. The wind was in my face so it made the climb seem a few gradients steeper than Saturday but I was still climbing strong. I did the reps in sets of 3 with something in between to spin the legs out, mainly trails but one time I went to MacDonald's for a tee. I never made any really hard efforts up the hill either days because I am only working on a base for climbing and treating it more as a power workout. It may seem crazy to some to be doing so many repeats up a climb, but next season I want to race elite road, where I will be working hard to hang on to the pack along the flats, never mind the 12 twelve times I will have to get up a climb harder than Hydro.
When I'm training I often think about how there are thousands of cyclists training harder than I am, riding faster, longer and climbing bigger hills. Yesterday and today I think that number was a lot smaller. I think training outdoors in these conditions will make me that much stronger when spring comes around.
Andrew 4, Winter 0.
This pic was stolen off Google Earth, but its what the top 3rd of Hydro looks like minus the snowbanks.
Good to see you out there today. Sounds like your weekend was productive for sure.
ReplyDeleteThat pic actually makes it look flatter then it is.
ReplyDelete