Idaho again

Riding alongside the Boise River.
We drove through southern Idaho again on our way from Oregon to Colorado. Here we stopped at Boise for a night and went for a bike ride and a run. We rode on the Boise River Greenbelt paved trail. This was a nice network of paved trails, they seem to go all over town, which would make commuting by bicycle easier and more enjoyable!


Part of the Greenbelt went past this diversion dam built in the late 1800s that irrigates water from the Boise river via canals to Boise Valley. The Valley would have been only a sagebrush desert if this project was not built. Now Boise Valley has sprawling green farmlands.


The building behind me is part of the hydroelectric plant that was added to the dam in 1912 to provide electricity to the Arrowrock Dam 17 miles upriver.

After the bike ride, Dad and I went for a nice 45 minute run on the Greenbelt. It was over 95 degrees and humid.

When the run was finished, I had a little fun! There was this dirt jumping park next to the Greenbelt.

For the next couple nights we parked at Indian Springs again. We were here in late May, but it was rainy and muddy. Now its nearing the middle of summer and everything was dry and like a real sagebrush desert! I had a hill run workout that the "Torturer" had me do. The strap around my chest is my heart rate monitor which senses my heart rate and shows the number of beats per minute on my wristwatch. This can be a valuable training tool because it allows you to know how hard you're working, so you don't put in too little or too much effort than what you're supposed to do.

Then at the bottom I had to run a few minutes at my anaerobic threshold, which is when you're working harder than you can get enough oxygen for. As a rough example, if you sprint about 100 or more yards and at the end you're bent over and a panting mess, you have passed your anaerobic threshold.

Then a little while later into the day Dad and I went for a fun mountain bike ride. And by fun, I mean tackling the hardest parts of the trails. Indian Springs has plenty of hard lines and easier lines of the trails so you can choose whichever one you want to go on.

Right now we're driving out of Twin Falls, on our way into Utah. We're kind of in a hurry to get into Colorado and go high up into the mountains for altitude training before Beaver Creek. The XTERRA race will start at approximately 6000 feet elevation and peaks above 9400 feet, so I had better go build some red blood cells!