Up and Up

I've been hitting the bike a lot lately, 12 hours of riding in the last 3 days. I'm in the dead center of the 3 week build cycle, so that means one more week with huge miles then a rest week.

Yesterday I took a jaunt up to Mt. Lemmon. It has nice mellow grades, so your not hitting the roof of you heart rate, but the damn hill goes for 30 miles. Looking at the mountain, it doesnt seem to have 30 miles of climbing, but then you'll come around a corner, and you see it go up and up and up.

Climbing mountains is something that I didnt experience until moving to BC. No matter how you look at it, there is no fun. Zero Fun. Mt Lemmon for example, I climbed and climbed and climbed for 15 miles( bout and hour and a half up) until it got too cold and windy to continue. The whole time you logically are thinking"wow this is going to feel so good when you reach the finish or the point to stop."

Its those thoughts that get you to the top, but then you turn around, thinking its smooth sailing and you have to deal with the FREEZING cold all the way down. Of course your not dressed for the decent either as its warm at the base. At the top your dealing with snow, and single digit temps, then you turn around and have to freeeze all the way down. Holy crap. Think about how cold over half hour of decending is at altitude, going upwards of 50+ km/h. COLD

I can honestly say it was the 3rd coldest time on the bike in my life(other 2, are stories all on their own). I can remember thinking all the way down..."I'm never going to take my arm warmers off ..ever...even off the bike" So cold.

You might think that once you reach the bottom, its smooth sailing, even after reaching the warmer temps, but no. Because of the decent all your joints and muscles are locked solid and all the blood has gone to your core. So even though its warm, your pedaling squares because your knees are so cold. It takes about a half hour to recover from. Mountains are no fun indeed.