My previous post was about going to The Bubble to ride with Mr. Big Guy.
I made it there in record time for a non-Subaru driver and soon found myself tooling round Boulder with Randy Gaffney, who not only has a city named for him in South Carolina but is also the father of Denver Bronco's wide receiver Jabar Gaffney. Just look at the family resemblance:
Ride day was perfect. Sunny, warm(ish), and very little wind (the wind is not allowed to blow on Saturdays in The Bubble). After a 1 hour warm up ride (which contained a 4 minute interval), it was time to get serious. Intervals. And no small amount of them.
MBG wanted to do 2 sets of 15 minute intervals. I figured, I'll just do an 8 and then a 5 minute effort. Of course, Randy had other ideas and in his casual way, talked me into 30 minutes. So, that's what I did. When coach say "do it this way", I've learned to pay attention and follow his direction.
15 minutes later, my head popped off and both of my legs turned to mush. "good effort", says Randy. "Lets do one more." So...I did one more. I can't say I remember much about it. The second 15 minute effort seems kind of blurry, the way you remember events that happened when you have a fever of 103. At the end of the second effort, we met up with a friend and rode a 12 minute paceline back into The Bubble. Apparently the intervals took us close to Wyoming or something and we had to ride a full gas to get back to the border before dark.
In the end, our ride was 3 hours long. Of that 180 minutes, more than 45 were at interval/race pace. I can honestly say I did not go to The Bubble with the idea of riding 45 minutes of intervals. I figured anything more than 12 minutes of intervals was out of my reach this February. MBG thought otherwise. With the emphasis on 'wise'.
Perfect day, perfect ride, perfectly tired.
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