October 11, 2022
Monday was another spectacular day in Bozeman. There are lots of trails around here, but there is one mountain biking trail that I have become particularly fond of: the Highland Glen-Triple Tree Trail. It’s in the grasslands on the eastern side of the valley and it runs north-south. The Gallatin Valley, where Bozeman is situated, tilts upward to the south, so the trail trends generally uphill as one rides south. But whoever designed this trail understood well what mountain bikers like. The trail stutter steps upward as it heads south, climbing for, say, 100 feet before dropping for 30. So whichever section of the trail you ride you get a mix of uphill and down. The trail is curvy, the designers put turns everywhere. It is so much fun to get out and play on. The alternative, which the designers wisely rejected, might have been a boring linear trail that rode a ridgeline steadily uphill with few turns. The final stretch heading south is a 600-foot climb up Triple Tree, a foothill of the Hyalite Range. This is a grunt up switchbacks with no fun ups and downs, but it provides one with an expansive view of the valley from the top and an exhilarating ride back down to the valley, and I got to see a moose just after I started down. A full grown male unicorn at that. I saw him out of the corner of my eye as I was riding past at a distance of about 50 feet. I stopped to get a better look and he bolted down the hill. Yes, he was scared of me. If he had run in my direction, the fear factor would have quickly reversed.
Well, that’s the fun stuff. How did this fit into my training? It didn’t, at least not very well. I couldn’t keep my heart rate in the low zones on climbs. Like on my trail run, staying in zone would have required that I push my bike up the hills at a rate of 3-breaths, 1-step. The biking was too much fun to even consider that. I moderated my pace somewhat on the climbs to keep my heartrate in check the best I could, but that was all. I kept in zone a bit better on the downhills, but even there, I think the exhilaration of zipping along a well-designed trail elevated my heartrate by a few beats. The out and back ride was 16.6 miles with 2,000 feet of climbing.
10 days in, I’m already realizing that this slow training regimen has to be a long-term process with lots of exceptions. One has to maintain a commitment to staying with the training, and accept that deviations are going to occur. I am not a professional athlete. For me to forgo the fun of a great mountain bike ride to do another slow jog that enables me to keep my heartrate in zone just doesn’t make sense. If I had a coach, s/he might beg to differ, but maybe not. Part of the goal of any training program is to keep the athlete engaged and excited. Letting loose somedays helps with that. And who knows, a coach might just say “go out and let ‘er rip. Just don’t go so hard that you can’t train tomorrow.”
Speaking of which, time to ‘get in the zone’ and go for my morning run.
Comments