Breaking Out of My Rut

Colorado Springs, cycling | UltraRob | Saturday, July 28th, 2007 at 6:50 pm

I’ve been in a rut the last few weeks with my riding. Normally I like variety but doing the same thing seems to have allowed me to do more riding the last couple weeks. I still haven’t been riding as much as I have in the past.

At lunch time I’ve been riding from work to the Tucker’s Tie In trailhead for the Santa Fe Trail. Then I’ve been riding up the Santa Fe Trail to the drainage under I-25 near the Blue Cross building. Then I take some single track and double track that parallels I-25 until I get to Old Ranch Road. Then I take some quiet back streets and cut through the Pine Creek Golf Course to get back to work.

I actually go a little after lunch because the Santa Fe Trail is popular with runners during lunch time. The ride takes me just over an hour which is about as long as I have time for at lunch. Riding on the Santa Fe Trail is quiet and peaceful especially the section along the creek. There’s only a couple traffic lights close to work and the rest of the time there’s nothing to make me stop. Mentally it’s been what I’ve needed to get a bit of a break from work. Riding on the road just has been appealing.

On Wednesday my co-worker Matt, that I also used to work with at Agilent, said he was going over to Agilent to meet a couple people and ride the 26th Street climb. Actually only the lower part is 26th street and then it turns onto Gold Camp until it turns to dirt. Even at the old Fluke Networks location, we could go do it if we took a long lunch. Now it pretty much requires driving to go do it at lunch. I don’t like driving to ride unless it’s out of town but I’ll occasionally make an exception.

It was one of our favorite rides when we worked closer. We also almost always rode it hard. It’s not steep since Gold Camp Road is an old railroad grade but it’s a good steady grade.

I wore my heart rate monitor for about the 5th time this year. In the past I’ve used it to track my riding and always wore it but this year I haven’t been keeping track. The good news I was able to hold my heart rate near 180 pretty much all the way up the climb and push it up to 190 at the top. Earlier this year I wasn’t fit enough to hold a high heart rate. The bad news was even though I was able to keep my heart high, I didn’t go very fast.

I was just happy doing a ride that I really like. You’re right at the edge of the city but it feels like you’re in the mountains. There’s very little traffic and the views are great.

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