Brian, Jason, and I did a fairly long ride up to Red Rocks today (for me it totalled 47.5 miles). This turned out to be a relatively arduous ride for me -- for some reason, my legs were just not working very well. Plus, Brian has been training on parts of this ride (including really hitting the hills hard), so he really smoked me a few times. I let him know he'd pay, and dearly, for dropping me on these climbs :-).

Anyway, the ride up to Red Rocks is pretty much all a gentle climb except for the less gentle parts, and Red Rocks itself has some really intense, but short hills. My heart rate got up over 170 many times today, and over 180 on some climbs on the return trip, when I wanted to ensure that I didn't get dropped again (I led, but only barely). When I got home I was really toasted.

Stats for the trip: 47.5 miles, 16.1 avg (sheesh), 148bpm avg heartrate for a 3:30 period.