Mike's Bike Blog

My 2 weeks of VO2 training is winding down, I've been doing a lot of 3 to 5 minute intervals at or near my VO2 Max 5 minute power level. For Saturdays training I had 6 intervals at 85% VO2 max for 3 minutes so I headed out on Limecreek Road to have a visit with the 3 Sisters. In the past the most times I've went up the sisters in succession is 4 or 5, I don't really recall the exact number, I might have blacked out.  I do remember it hurting.

The pace wasn't overly hard, with a hill like the 3 Sisters it's pretty easy to maintain the appropriate power. I find it harder not to go too far over the prescribed power level, but to be able to do 6 intervals I knew I needed to stay close to the power I needed to do and not exceed it too much. On all the intervals I was about 30 watts over, the 5th interval was the only one to fall below the prescribed power level and that was only by 6 watts. In the 3 minute time I wasn't able to get fully up to the top, my best time is about 3 minutes 9 seconds when going all out. In the 3 minutes I was able to get 1/2 way up the 3rd sister, almost to the top. I'd say about 10 to 20 seconds away from the top. On the 6th and final interval I did go all the way to the top in 3 minutes 35 seconds. I was happy with that time for the 6th time up it that morning.

Afterwards my legs felt great and I could have went up a few more times before I would have fatigued. That got me thinking that a good workout some time would be to see how many times I can go up and down it in a day.

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