Well it has been over a week or so since I have posted and it is an indication that I have been having a hard time keeping up with work, training and life in general! I knew that this 3 week stretch was going to be very interesting to say the least. I decided to drive to one of my meetings for my Medical Distribution Company. The meeting was in Scottsdale, AZ. It included stopping off in Albuquerque, NM for a 3 day training session with a long time friend, Scott Sharp. He is my brother-in-laws brother if you can follow that one? The picutures above cannot begin to describe how great the riding is in New Mexico!I only had my road bike, but man it looks to have some incredible mountain biking as well. It is a really cool state for cycling and the weather is very conducive for riding a bike all year.
From the last blog you can see that I was on my bike immediately, like within an hour after arriving in Albuquerque. That was just a taste of what was to come over the next 2 days! We headed out the next day with intentions of a LONG RIDE! Scott lives at 5000 Ft. So, being at altitude all the time was great! Any route we took from his house included climbing out or back home. So, climbing was the name of the day for the next two days! We took it fairly easy heading toward the foot hills of the CREST. (The Highest point in Albuquerque) We climbed steady toward until we got up to the road that I would describe as the main road along the foothills. We had climbed about 1500 ft. at this point. It was time to really climb now!
There was a little park area that had a 2 mile climb. That was on the menu for the day. It started out gradual, but soon took us to about 8% grade with hints of 12-13%. I was feeling a little chippy, so I picked up the pace, quickly to realize I had not even remotely accomodated to the altitude! I pushed it until about 1 K to the top, then I backed it down, knowing that we had more riding and it was starting to get extremely steep! We made it up to the top and took a moment to enjoy the view of Albuquerque at 7000 feet plus. It was incredible and I forget what an accomplishment it feels like once you climb up something like this and have a moment to look at the view!
We then continued along the Foothills road. Theire are several "Finger Roads" off of this route. They head straight up the mountain and then dead end. We took one of those and then turned around to head back to Scott's house. We had an blast bombing back down the road toward the city! It was full one 2 person paceline rotations down hill. I have not opened my legs up on the road like that yet this year!
With one more little climb back up to his house, I flatted with about 1 mile to go. Limped into his driveway, but was still smiling! I fixed the flat, Scott had some business to attend to so I headed back out for another hour. My first 4 hr ride in a long time. It felt good, but I had no idea what to expect for the next day or how my legs would react to this effort?
The next day was the Crest! I am reserving a post for tomorrow concerning that one...It is very deserving of it's own blog post....
I am sitting in Salt Lake City, UT airpot and getting ready to jump on a plane home....It will take a few days to catch up to the past days adventures in my bikelife!
Stay tuned! Go!
