It was a nice day out, and I'm feeling secure in my ability to endure the 80 miles of pedaling for two days in a row, given that there isn't much elevation change in the MS150 route, so I am continuing my approach of HIIT training using hills. Ali warned me that cyclists get killed on Stratford, so I decided to use my neighborhood loop through Barton Hills instead, today. I also realized that the little loop on the end that hits the hills on Tether, Kassarine, and Rockingham is a perfect little one to do over and over and over, so I did, first by pedaling back out to Robt E Lee and back up Barton Hills, but then twice more just looping back on Barton Skyway when I hit it on Rockingham, which cuts the loop down to a tiny little thing. The fourth time I hit those hills my legs were starting to feel pretty tired, so I finished the rest of the ride handily before it got dark.

The training is working amazingly well; in such a short period of time, I've gone from struggling up hills like these to just comfortably standing and breezing through them. The only trick now is getting the gearing right at the beginning, since the hills are too steep to shift in the middle. Luckily they're short enough I can power through unless I'm egregiously wrong.

Some flowers are in bloom on Kassarine Pass just at the top of the hill coming from Mountain View, and I don't know what they are but they smelled so amazing that they were honestly powerful motivation to keep riding the loop. I thought maybe they were lilacs, but that didn't quite seem right. It's worth going out there if you live anywhere nearby. I've never smelled flowers so nice.