Spring Thaw report

Well there is no report to report, Spring Thaw didn't happen for me this year.  Was all set to load up the caravan with Sheppard and Thompson at 4am in the morning Sat, but decided to pass on the 4-hour drive.  I find it hard to justify these days spending the whole day traveling  only to do a 1.5 hour race, even though this was a race I was looking forward to. 

So instead of doing the race I was able to get in a solid block of training over the  weekend with a race-effort ride on Sat to simulate the Spring Thaw.  On Friday I headed to McKenzie Pass to do some hill repeats.  Not knowing how far I would be able to go due to the road still having snow, I decided to go as far as I could and then repeat that time 4 times.  So I did 4x20x10 (4 sets of 20 min steady state effort with 10 min recovery in between sets.  McKenzie Pass is one of the more scenic and remote climbs around Central Oregon.  And for this year the Cascade Cycling Classic race will be adding this stage back in again.  The race will ride the back side of the pass; which is very similar to any Grand Tour mountain stage...lots of steep gradients and many, many switchbacks with a mountaintop finish.

Sat I did a simulated race effort mixing in trails from North Fork, South Fork, Tumalo Creek, and Skyliners/Tumalo Ridge trail.  The goal was to get in more climbing and lots of rollers.  I wasn't able to get as high on the North and South Fork trails as I thought I would (due to snow), but the other trails were ok.  Max HR during the ride was 181 and avg HR was 144.  It's always hard to push yourself as hard as you would during a race, but I can honestly say I felt as though I was racing someone today.

On Sunday, I wanted to get in more climbing so I rode up Century Dr. towards Mt. Bachelor to the Sunriver Cutoff Rd.  Then I rode down to Edison Sno-park before turning around and riding back up to Century Dr.  Without pushing too hard on the pedals I was able to keep the HR at an avg of 129 bpm and only reached a max of 161. 

By the time I got home I was able to catch the final 8k of the Tour of California race on Steephill.tv and see Cav light it up once again.