Today and then--The taper

Today was the last day of "work". The order of the day was 5 ish "easy" hours with 20-30 mins. of Z4 intensity thrown in. After 7.5 hours yesterday, I was pretty much cooked today. I managed to get 5 hours in, but the last 2 were painful--tired, sore and unfocused. The intensity was short-lived, lasting a total of about 5 mins--the legs just would not churn out the watts--my HR would not come up--not sure if this is due to fatigue, altitude or both. I feel pretty good about the last 2 days, other than not getting the intensity done. I'm looking forward to the taper and spending time with moose and possums.

Not knowing the area well has made it tough to find the right routes. I looked on  http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/network/digest/view.mb and found this ride around Lake Dillon. Technology is crazy--I downloaded the gpx file and loaded into the Garmin--away I went.

Play by play detail down to 50 ft--yes, yes I still made several wrong turns.

That's me- the little black triangle over the route in red.

To add to the misery, the wind was howling by the time I turned up hill and was heading home.

All paved and I think 3500 ft of climbing over 66.5 miles is tame by Colorado standards--sure did not feel that way. Tomorrow is an easy 90 mins in Z1 followed by a trip to Glenwood Springs to take the waters.