Riding in Taos
Sprints on the Bike
I’m sort of a “smell the roses” kind of cyclist! I like to cruise around and if I do get in a hard effort, I gradually go harder. So when I decided to do some bike races and realized I’d have to do many, many very hard short accelerations to stay with the pack, I thought I had better get some done in training first. Ouch! I haven’t tried that hard in ages. I mean like over 20 years. The last few years of my racing I never did any interval under 8 minutes on the bike. What a shock to the system. I thought I got kicked in the chest by a horse. As memory served me, the first time is by far the biggest shock, so I did it again. It was a 45 second attack up a steep grade here in Taos, about 6,800 ft. Second one wasn’t nearly as bad and I had a faster time up the hill. Third one was even faster with no hoof marks. The fourth one was way slower! I was tired. That was all I had for the first workout of this type. ha! Very different from 25 years ago, but fun none the less.