Monday, May 26, 2008

biking: my hill climb workout

Thanks to my Garmin Forerunner 305, I'm able to graphically enjoy the results of yesterday's hill climb up Kings Mountain Road in Woodside.

The graphic below shows heart rate v elevation as I climbed from near sea level here at the house to just over 2100 feet up at Skyline Drive.

The first plateau (mile four, at 350 feet) was my cycling through downtown Woodside before starting up the hill. Then it was four miles and 40 minutes of 7% grade to the top before screaming down again.

Seeing my hear rate stayed in the 150s on the climb shows me I likely could have pushed a little harder on the way up, and I'm glad to see the recovery on the ride down put me around 100bpm.

While my legs were definitely fatigued by the time I made it home, I didn't really feel all that sore afterwards (happily).

And this may have been my last training ride on my current bike (a K2 Astral 4.0 hybrid). I've got a chance to pick up a 2007 Felt Z35 road bike at a great price today from a local bike shop. I did a short test ride on it yesterday, and I'm smitten.

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