Minimum altitude: 231 meters
Distance: 29.8 km
Slope Aspect: South
Vertical Climbed: 830 meters (2,723 feet)
Vertical Descended: 829 meters
Rating: 3
Based on my Strava analysis project: https://github.com/davidzof/Training-Analyzer and LLM coach (Claude AI), I had a 4×8 interval session planned today. I left home early to avoid the heat and headed for the south side of the Col des Mouilles. I do not ride this side very often because it catches the sun and becomes a furnace later in the morning, but it provides just the right amount of resistance for intervals.
It took a while to get going and the first effort felt very hard despite a decent warm-up. The second was slightly compromised by a badly positioned HR strap, but by the final two reps I had settled into the session. The four hard efforts came out at roughly 7–8 minutes each, averaging around 164–167 bpm, with the recoveries done very gently on the climb rather than downhill. That kept my heart rate fairly high on the interval, above VT2, even while backing right off.
The analyser classified the ride as a high-confidence supra-threshold interval session, which matches how it felt. My analyser found a best 15-minute VAM of 840 m/h, so the numbers look good and at 1 hour a minute quicker than in June when I wasn't doing intervals. Ok a long way off my PB of 44 minutes.
Despite struggling to get started, I actually felt better after completing the session than before. It was cool enough that I needed my gilet for the descent and kept it on all the way home.
17C on the summit, 22C in the valley.
