Four Days of Bliss

I’ve been very lax on my blog over the last few months so I got a lot of catching up to do. Many times I’ve thought about giving it up (the blog) all together, but every now and then someone will ask me about it. So in an effort to document my Leadman training for 2012 and hopefully help someone else if they ever have aspirations to take on such a task, I’ve decided to keep it going. I have to go back a few weeks to a four day road ride with a bunch of old and now new friends called the Gentlemen’s ride. It’s a ride that  been going on for years and consists of good hard rides through Colorado  and New Mexico. Way fun and a great bunch of guys. And don’t let the “Gentlemen’s” part fool you. There  are some fast guys in this grop.  We divided up into different groups based on speed then left each day at staggered times with the intent of finishing fairly close to the same time. The route and scenery were beautiful along with perfect weather. This was a perfect four days for getting some good hard miles in the legs and turning things around training wise. I went with the intent of running in the afternoons after the rides but only managed to do it once and that was a pretty miserable run.

Day 1: San Luis, CO (the oldest town in CO) to Chama, NM            89 miles                4000 Ft climbing

Day 2: Chama, NM to Taos, NM                                                           92 miles                4500 Ft climbing
Day 3: Enchanted Loop (Awesome ride and scenery)                      86 miles                7696 Ft climbing
Day4: Taos, NM to  San Luis, CO                                                          63 miles                1700 Ft climbing

Heading up the first climb of 4 days all together

Rio Grande Gorge

Three REALLY fast old guys!

Chad & Norm Climbing on Enchanted Loop

Awesome Scenery, Awesome Low Traffic Roads!

	Training Log May 14 - 20, 2012	Bike	Bike	Run	Run
		HRS	Miles	HRS	Miles
Monday	Core Strength Training.
Tuesday	Lunch time Tempo ride on Santa Fe Traill with Steve. From Ice Lake parking lot. Kept HR in the 140 range and felt pretty good. Went To Baptist Rd. HR120/151	1.6	22
Wednesday	Easy run with Max Hanks Open Space loop. Very easy felt good. 9:50 pace,			0.7	4
Thursday	Gentlemen's ride - San Luis, CO to Chama, NM. Took some warming up and was not as strong as I would have liked on the climbs. Great ride though. HR 129/162, 4605 ft of climbing	5.4	88
	Slow run after ride. Very slow and took a while to warm up, but never felt like actually running. Ran through neighborhoods in  Chama. 8:55 pace			0.9	6
Friday	Great ride from Chama to Taos New Mexico. Climbed well and had an incredble ride into Taos with a great tail wind. Had a cross wind for about 10 miles were we took 1 mile pulls and got through it great. Cover 92 miles in about 5 hours of actual ride time. Avg over 20 mph for ride. Max speed 53 miles.HR 125/157, 6000 ft of climbing.	5.4	92.5
Saturday	Enchanted Loop New Mexico. Incredible ride. Started climb with Dan and the fast group, but got dropped on the climbs. Spent a lot of the time to Red River riding alone between the 1st group and the 2nd group. At Red River decided to ride with the B group. Great climb over Bobcat pass to Eagles Nest. 11 miles of brutal cross & head winds between Eagles Nest and Angel Fire. 2 mile climb out of Angel Fire then 17 mile awesome descent. Max Speed 59 mph, HR 118/152, 7696 ft of climbing	6.2	86
Sunday	Taos, NM - San Luis, CO. Started the first 20+ miles on tough rollers then pacelined the whole way back to San Luis. I took some monster pulls of 4 miles. The  pace was fast and sometimes had me thinking of dropping off, but hung the whole way and had an incredible ride. HR 131/159, 3,230  ft climbing	3.3	62.3
		21.9	350.8	1.6	10
				23.5	360.8