Training in Earnest

Now that we have officially entered Daylight Savings Time, we have an extra hour of daylight in the evening. This lets me do training rides after work during the week. This is a crucial component of my training schedule because just riding on weekends is not frequent enough to increase my conditioning.

This week I did my first mid-week ride in a few months. I did my usual ride up Page Mill Road. I did not go all the way to the top, mainly because my legs were not fully recovered from the two strenuous rides last weekend. I was also running out of daylight since I was not able to leave the office as early as I wanted. It ended up being a 26 mile ride, which was great to have done on a Wednesday.

This weekend, I only rode on Sunday. I rode up Soda Springs Road, which is a 6 mile, dead-end road that starts at the Lexington Reservoir in Los Gatos. To get there, I had to ride on the unpaved Los Gatos Creek trail, which I had also done a couple months ago to get to Bear Creek Road.


The creek ends at the dam, and I rode clockwise around the reservoir to get the the start of Soda Springs Road. This was my first time up Soda Springs. The road is not excessively steep, but is fairly challenging. After coming back down, I finished my clockwise loop around the reservoir. The road that rings the water has a good amount of elevation gain, so that part was also enjoyable.

I rode back mostly the same route that I came by, except I decided to go home via Stevens Creek Park so that I would have some more climbing. I usually have no problem on those smaller hills, but Soda Springs took most of my energy. I struggled on the hills near Stevens Canyon, but I enjoyed it because I knew it was making me stronger.

At this rate, it may take me only one more month to reach the peak condition I was at last year.