Weird

Todays was the second time I have had to do this particular workout in the last 11 weeks and I hate it. I love doing long 40 minute climbing intervals but these stupid short sprint ones just blow me to bits. I do these on an easier climb and the workout looks like this: Ride for 30 minutes at under Zone 2 to warm up. Then do a 15 minute climb at upper zone 3 (I love this). The second and third 15 minute intervals are bursty. You start and work the heart rate up to about 160 (for me) and then at the top of every minute you shift to a gear that puts cadence under 50 rpm's. Then you sprint all out in an effort to bring the rpm back up to 95ish and you end the interval when you can hit 95 or after 10 seconds. I always use a gear that forces me to go the whole 10 seconds. These are incredibly painful for me.

The interesting thing for me is that this is very similar to a workout a bunch of us used to do on floor trainers in the basement of a place I was renting back in St. Louis. Can't recall how we decided it would be a good idea to do these but we called them 20/40's. After a thorough warm up, we would then do 20 seconds at 120 rpm's (maybe 53X17 depending on time of year) and then spin 40 seconds in an easier gear at with no specific rpm. I think we would only do this one time and then we would do 3x5 minute intervals (2 cogs up this time) at 110 rpm's. The two workouts are ironically similar.

One thing I have learned about training for ultras is that there is a lot of time spent training that upper end of fitness and I never used to do this in 2008 or 2009 when I first started. In 2011 I started putting things together (after many discussions with some friends who were willing to help me) and hired LW Coaching and saw how they combined both top end and bottom end to build a complete machine for going long distances.

I am now just a bit over a week out from starting and I'm cool as a cucumber. It's weird. In 08, 09, and 11 I was a wreck at this stage. I guess I'm either ready and I'm gonna finally put in a solid effort that's true to my abilities or something else.