Zak Attack

Had a pretty fun ride yesterday.  Since the pooch is getting so chubby I decided to bring him into work with me so that he could go on a ride with me after work.  I decided to hit up the Zak Preserve since its short enough to not kill the dog plus I want to be sure that its suitable for the people from my office whom I’m trying to get back into riding.  

The ride started off on a poor note when I quickly got a slow leak on the front tire and when I went to replace the tube I realized that I only had a 29’er tube with me (I was riding the Moto Rapido instead of the Dos because of hub problems) but it turns out that in a pinch, a 29’er tube works just fine in a 26” tire.  It took a bit of work to stuff it all in but once that was accomplished and I had the tire reseated it aired up just fine and I could notice no ill effects.  The rest of the ride went really well.  The trails in the preserve are super tight and twisty.  I realized that while super tight and twisty is good for me it probably isn’t so hot for a couple of my co-workers.  The last thing that I want is to drag them out on a ride that is above their heads and totally kill the fun for them.  Looks like I may take them to the Schmidt Preserve instead.  It also has some very nice single track but its much more open and forgiving.  At Zak, if you miss a turn you’re likely to get a pungi stick in the gut at Schmidt you’ll probably only slam into a hardwood.  Sounds better doesn’t it?

Another item of note is that I’ve started to introduce some specific interval work into my rides (especially in my trainer rides).  Since I’m seeing less time for riding this year than years past, I need to really focus more to get more out of my limited time so I’m forcing myself to do REAL intervals.  Every year, I say that I’m going to start doing interval workouts but I’ve never been focused enough to do it.  I usually would just end up going out for a ride and hope for the best.  Well, no such luxury this year so I’m really going to crack down and bust those suckers out.  Sunday’s trainer ride was short (1 hour) but after a nice warm-up I did a set of five intervals at a cadence of 100-110 rps followed by 10 minutes of tempo and then another five intervals working my cadence up to 110-120 in the last 10-15secs of each interval and then followed it up with 15 minutes of cool down.  That one hour left me more spent than any longer trainer workout that I’ve ever done.  I guess that if I’m forced to ride the trainer I might as well suffer like a dog and get the most bang for my buck.