Bike Intervals (Finally!)

Since June and early July were so busy (and I was focusing more on getting in quality RUNNING workouts), my bike speed has been lacking. So the day after I did my final track workout before tomorrow's 1-mile race, I headed out for some bike intervals. I didn't have a ton of time, so I set my Garmin to take auto splits at 3.5 miles and figured I'd do 4 x 3.5 mile intervals with 3:00 easy riding between.

I took off down the Greenway Trail and started my intervals just across the Hiawatha Bridge so they could be wrapped up before the construction just past the lakes:

There was a breeze from the west (or at least I HOPED SO) because my first interval was slow. But then my 2nd was fast, so whew... it was just the wind. Just a quick decent workout:

#1: 10:53, 19.3 mph (18.7 mph halfway)
3:00 easy, 0.79 miles, 15.7 mph

#2: 8:53, 23.6 mph (23.4 mph halfway)
2:51 easy, 0.69 miles, 14.5 mph

#3: 10:34, 19.9 mph (19.0 mph halfway)
2:51 easy, 0.78 miles, 16.4 mph

#4: 8:47, 23.9 mph (23.5 mph halfway)

My Garmin speed shows the wind out there, as #1 and #3 were slower, and #2 and #4 were faster:

Intervals highlighted in red at the bottom.

It was my first real bike effort in over 4 weeks, and that wasn't a great workout. My last real hard bike effort was the Oakdale Duathlon 6 weeks ago. I need to keep hitting the bike hard! (But it's fun to be running decently and putting in solid running workouts! I just need to find a better balance of "saving my legs for run workouts by not biking hard" and "still getting in fast bike workouts.")

ONE MILE RACE HAPPENING SOON! Check back for a race report!