Originally Posted by
Carbonfiberboy
The longer, harder route. Push a little, but not too much. Monday off. My tradition is to do the final taper on my rollers: Tuesday, 1 hr. zone 2 with 3 X 1 X 2 power intervals. Wednesday, 1 hr. zone 1 with 2 X 1 X 2 power intervals. Thursday, 45 minutes zone 1 with one 1' power interval. Friday rest for a Saturday century. Go to bed early on Thursday.
So I did the longer route as you suggested. I'm really glad I did. See my post in the thread about hill climbing progression for some details on my hill climbing epiphany. But the other reason I'm glad I did it is that we had pretty good headwind, about 20-25 mph, for most of the 30-35 mile climb. It was no big deal. People keep telling me the Palm Springs ride can be tougher than it looks because there's often a headwind for the first 25 miles or so. I wasn't exactly freaked out by that, but was thinking it could be a big problem for me. Of course it still could, a 30-40-50mph winds are a different thing altogether. But now I feel pretty confident about any kind of reasonably likely headwind. If it doesn't not knock me down, it will only make me stronger.
Im still not sure what I'm going to do for the rest of the week. I'll see how my legs feel in the am, maybe just an easy 30 mi tomorrow. Yoga Monday. Probably one set of trainer intervals Tuesday and then I may just take Wed, Thurs and Fri off and sleep a lot.
Thanks as usual.
H