This is where the training plan for the month of August started lining with some great training.  Park City is that – great training, great community, great location.  Perfect day today – beautiful cool temps after late night thunderstorms here in Park City.  Clear mountain air, cool temps in the low 50s, sunny and everything is flushed out from a solid rain.

Roll out at 8am – with local friends as well as those who flew in.  70 miles of beautiful countryside and perfect 4-8% grades for 20 min climbs..rollers, dirt roads, canyons, fly fishing streams next to the road, country stores, and overall perfect riding roads & conditions..

Home at noon – quick fueling stop – then off to run 6 miles, steady with race sensations.  While the food in my stomach limited any type of light feet, the engine still felt good, and the focus was more keeping the HR under control vs. pushing a tick too hard.  BIG day of riding tomorrow.

Riding on someone else’s bike is always different – but this one felt great all day.  Never an issue and the fit was mighty close to perfect.

Observations:  riding at 7000ft requires smart timing on food.  If you eat while climbing or out of breath – it takes a while to have the HR catch up to the breathing again – I should say gasping vs. breathing… I am also told the the dry buggers go away once you live up here (good to know!)…HR while elevated, still settles in and once you find your sweet spot – you can actually ride quite well at altitude.  I pushed some intervals today – and while the watts were dead on, the HR actually settled in only 2-3 beats higher than normal.

70 miles on the bike – 2 bars, , banana.  4x24oz water.  While the food was a bit low – ate 2000cals for breakfast before push off, so that carried me 2 hrs into the bike, which then means 300 cals per hour was dead on big training caloric needs.  (Breakfast 3x english muffin with jam and butter, 1x egg & heirloom tomato sandwich on wheat bread, banana, 2 cups coffee, 1x peanut butter and honey sandwich)

25 hours of training into the epic August so far, 21:30 this week, the 6+ hrs tomorrow ought to add just the punch in the gut to leave me tired…

Below some pictures from todays tour…plenty of dirt roads & climbs.

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Tomorrow – 6 hrs on the bike – 10,000ft of climbing is planned.  But we’ll start with a morning (early morning) swim – and then finish our ride in time to see the final stage of the Tour of Utah coming into PC..