This is the first time I've tried the HIIT thing (high intensity interval training) on my bike. I picked Stratford, because it's the hilliest road near my house. I biked over, and then biked down Stratford to where it hits Redbud, trying to keep my heart rate as high as I could.

It turns out it's really hard to keep my heart rate over 170 on the brief flats and certainly the downhills, and even on the uphills, it just CRUSHES me to try to do that, my legs feel like they're going to explode or I'll black out or something. I think part of it might be needing a smaller granny gear in the front, I just can't spin reasonably past only like 8-9%, where I have been biking up hills with friends who were going slower than I and spinning at a higher cadence -- hmm.

I went out and back once, rested 4 minutes, then did it again. Turns out I have to be more careful with my knees. The second time I did it, my right knee was making some noise up in front, above the kneecap, but doing more standing to climb and less high-torque pedaling while seated helped a lot.

I wanted to go a third time (shocking, I generally consider myself more of a wimp than a masochist) but considering my knee was bugging me, it was getting dark, and was threatening to rain, I took off home and as a compromise spun at a really high cadence, like 110, really pushing myself to go very fast up S 5th St towards home as a mini third interval.