Throbbing Thigh Thriller

This ride inspired Amy to coin our 2011 ride motto.

Quick Stats Ride Distance: 40.23 miles Elevation Gain: 3,268 feet Average Moving Speed: 14.21 mph

Last Week's Ride Data:

Last weekend we started the year with a 30-mile ride out past Frenchman's Bar along the Columbia River. It is as flat a ride as you can get around here, save for the climb up Fruit Valley Road to get back up to our house. Just look at the elevation profile: flat as a pancake for the middle out-and-back part of the ride, or about 25 miles.


Today's ride was not flat as a pancake. Our local bicycle club has a ride called the Throbbing Thigh Thriller which hits a lot of hills between our house and Ridgefield. So over the last couple years we have ridden variants of it numerous times and our this is our favorite version of it. Last year it worked really well as a mid-week training ride for us. Starting from our house there is just the right amount of warm up before hitting little 100 to 250-foot climbs all over the place, eventually adding up to 3,200 feet of elevation gain in 40 miles.

For me it functions as High Intensity Interval Training. If you are an expert about such things and it really doesn't work that way, please don't tell me. I like to think it does.

TODAY'S RIDE DATA:

We had been planning on doing a century in two weekends, but with all the rain (and therefore lack of riding) we're not sure we'll be able to do it. We figured today's ride would be a decent yard stick to see where we are. After the ride, I'm still not sure. I felt pretty good early, but was definitely feeling it by mile 30 or so. The last big hill (Felida) is kinda nasty, but I was able to push up it fairly strong. It is easier to do when you know it is the last hill.

I feel like all the strength training I did with my legs over the winter has helped some with my power. But of course it is only our second outdoor ride so I am also feeling limited by my cardio shape. So it is hard to tell. I could compare the data from last year to this year but I haven't calibrated my iBike yet this year so I don't really trust the power numbers yet.

Oh, back to that teaser opening sentence. Before we got to that final Felida climb we were on a nice stretch of what is usually relatively easy riding, but with today's southwest wind, and the fact that it is Ride No. 2, it was tougher than usual. Amy came up with our 2011 Ride Motto right there on the spot:

What doesn't kill you makes you sore tomorrow! -Amy Pugh

Of course there is more to that inspiration than meets the eye. The full story is that we went to the gym together yesterday and decided to do a leg workout. A very easy one with very light weights because we'll be riding tomorrow. Just three different leg exercises: leg press, leg curls, and leg extensions. I hadn't done these since January. And Amy hadn't done them in probably more than a year. Which is why we did very light weights.

But we were still both very sore today. Yes, our legs. The same legs that took us up all those climbs. Which we knew we were going to do when we did the leg exercises.

Doh! Pretty stupid. Oh well. We survived. And will definitely be sore tomorrow.

RIDE MAP IN GOOGLE EARTH:

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