A routine week. Wasn't on the bikes as much this week, but managed a couple of nice road rides at lunch. Abused the arms and legs at the gym on Friday, and paid for it Saturday on the singlespeed out at Cedro with Ann. We rode a couple of hours and it was the first really sunny Saturday I can remember in over a month. Saw some mule deer and some people hiking with their goats. That was wierd. Sunday was equally as nice. Ann went for a trail run, so I headed up to the Otero/David Canyon area for a great afternoon ride. I rode hard for 2 hours and was feeling darn good, but had to end the ride and get home for chores and to smoke some salmon for dinner.
Docs visit went good today. The new insulin is working good and the blood chemistry is spot on. HDL is 47 and LDL is 91 while the triglycerides are 96. A1C is 6.0 and I'd like to get that back down into the 5.5 to 5.9 range again, but it will take some tweaking with the new insulin cocktail. Hematocrit is a very average 43% so maybe I'm somewhat aerobically challenged in the endurance arena, but I bet Tyler Hamilton would be happy with that number!
I love this time of year when the summer transitions into fall. Sleep seems to come easier and there's something magical about being in the mountains. "Consider the flowers of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these".

Cochiti Mesa. Ann and I Took the 45 mile drive to the trailhead for some epic riding. This area is just spectacular and the trail network is amazing. There is an incredible amount of superb singletrack up here and I know I've just scratched the surface of it all. Add to that, beautiful rock formations, ancient ruins, wildlife, running water, and scenic vistas and it's a hard place to beat.

The ride ended up being about 12 miles longer than originally planned due to my foul up with the gps and a wrong scaled map. I could see Ann was about reaching the limits of her comfort zone, so I got our path righted, and got us headed back. With the impending thunder storm and the creeks running quite high, it was the right decision. Still we managed 30 miles and the gps profile says we did 5,000 feet of climbing on a nice mix of singletrack and doubletrack. I brought the singlespeed as has been my standard this summer while Ann was on her trusty S-Works. Definitely need to get back there to explore some more. Maybe later this fall when Dixon's Orchard is serving up fresh apple cider.

Here's a link to a map and profile of one of the big Cochiti loop options courtesy of FOO If you right click on the image, you can save it to your computer and use your graphics software to get it to a scale to suit your needs.

I think Ann is planning on killing me during a run tomorrow morning, so she'll get her payback soon. Though, I had fun watching her catch and pass 2 guys who had a 10-minute head start on us from Dixon's. She's a better rider than she thinks she is. Enjoy a few pictures of the area on an overcast and rainy day. Grace and Peace.

Picking up the pace. I was scanning Matt's blog last week to glean some wisdom from this endurance machine, and realized that my summer riding has lacked intensity. So, this week I picked up the pace and threw two high intensity rides into my schedule, and you know what, I'm feeling better already. Look for Matt to have a strong showing at the Leadville 100 this weekend.

Monday, I got out on the roadie along the bosque trail and rode seven hard intervals. Funny, but at only 55 minutes total time on the bike, I burned far more calories than a steady paced 3 hour ride with 1,500 feet of climbing. Tuesday was a recovery ride on the road bike, and I just focused on keeping my heart rate at about 130 to 135 bpm, which for me means about 19 to 21 mph on the flats on a not windy day. I've definitely got room for improvement on the cardio and really am trying to beef up my endurance.

Thursday I was able to flex my work schedule, so I got a really intense singlespeed ride in up at Cedro which included an all out climb up Poker Chip (south to north), then a gnarly decent on a new trail I'd spotted (unsustainable so I'll avoid in the future) onto the Meadow 2-track where I picked up Lone Pine to Pinyon 2-track, then an all out nasty climb up the mutant back to the north end of Poker Chip. The trails are reasonably dry and in decent shape, with a few exceptions along Lone Pine. A crust has developed on most of the trails up there and it really increases the rolling resistance and fatigue on the legs, but it was just an outstanding morning up there. Rode 20 miles in less than 2 hours, so happy with that. Not sure about the total climbing, but I'd guess around 2K given the route I took. Stay tuned for more dirt miles this weekend.......

Ever listen to Chris Thile play mandolin? He's the best on the planet and still a youngster to boot. I was listening to his "Stealing Second" CD this week and realized that when he made it in 1997, he didn't even have a drivers license yet. Amazing talent.

Another rainy Saturday morning. Can't believe we've had to cancel rides in the east mountains on two consecutive Saturday's. So, we ended up just riding from the house to the north foothills. I was bummed because I've been a little bored with the foothills lately, but was glad to be able to ride anyway. Ann headed out about a half hour in front of me while I tinkered around in the garage. Once I finally got going I made the one mile climb up to the Tram/water tanks, then worked over to our adopted "bomb" trail and climbed that. Wasn't feeling it today, and in fact, haven't been riding very strong for over a month. Don't think I've overtrained, but I may be run down and have had that tendency during the summer. If I've slept well the night before, I've got a really good resting heart rate of 44 bpm. Haven't checked my max lately, but guessing it's still around 180 to 185. I've got a docs appt. later this month so we can see how the blood chemistry is looking and see how well I'm controlling the blood sugar, with this new insulin I've been on. Trails were in great shape today, but my not feeling well showed in the stats; only rode 12 miles with 1,300 feet of climbing at an average speed of 10.2 mph which is over 1 mph slower than my "normal" pace out there. Got some big rides coming later this month and into the fall, so need to be ready for those. Been listening to podcasts of John MacArthur. What an amazing bible scholar, and probably my all time favorite teacher. Give him a listen.