Just a brief post today, to let you all know about this morning's workout. One word describes it perfectly...BRUTAL!
Today's workout was hill intervals on the bike. For those of you who are not familiar with interval training (you clearly haven't been following this blog from the beginning), intervals are short durations of activity...usually high intensity activity, followed by a short duration of either rest or significantly lower intensity activity. For example...sprint 10 seconds, rest 20, sprint 10, rest 20, and so on. Interval training is used quite successfully to improve cardiovascular fitness levels, specifically one's lactate threshold (roughly the point at which one's body shifts from an aerobic state to an anaerobic state), and the ability to perform high intensity activities for longer periods of time. Subsequently, interval training has been shown to be very effective at reducing unwanted body fat levels.
Today's interval session for me involved getting up at 0500 so that I could get my training in before heading to work. The workout called for a total of eight intervals; four rounds of three-minutes of climbing, followed by three-minutes of easy riding. First of all, there aren't to many hills where I live...at least not ones that are paved. Trying to do hill intervals out on the trail can be quite difficult because it is hard to find that 'just right' hill that affords you the ability to ride and rest for just the right amount of time. This particular workout is supposed to be performed on a hill that is roughly a 6-8% grade.
Well, I don't know of any hills close by me that are 6-8%, but there is one that is closer to 15-20%...so that's the one I chose. I know, I know...kinda stupid huh? I didn't really have much of a choice though. The other issue with this hill is that it is about one mile long...much further than I would travel in three minutes of 15-20% graded climbing! This means that my easy riding would consist of the very fast (and scary fun!) downhill coast, back to the bottom of the hill...which by the way, only took about 30-seconds. Those 30-seconds ended up being my rest period, as I simply turned around and hammered right back up the hill.
Believe me, I know what you are saying right now..."Why didn't you just rest while you were at the bottom of the hill?" Well, to be completely honest with you, there was another rider out there (a roadie...which is what mountain bikers call road bikers) who was doing the same hill intervals as I was...and you know me...there was no way I was going to let some roadie see me resting at the bottom of the hill, while he wasn't! It's a testosterone thing. To make matters worse, I was performing my intervals on my mountain bike, which is much heavier than a road bike, and has both front and rear active suspension, which reduces the efficiency of each pedal stroke...so basically, I was working much harder than if I had been on a road bike.
Mr. 'Roadie' was already there before I arrived so there was no way I was going to leave before he did...no way! So instead of performing four complete intervals series, I ended up doing five. Thank God he was gone when I got back down from my fifth...I did not want to have to do a sixth! Needless to say I was very happy he had left, and I quickly packed it in, and headed to work...my legs aching and my lungs burning...it was goingto be a great day!
Ok, so it wasn't all that brief...sorry.
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