The Circle of Pain

Thursday am's, Doug and Jeff Park roll out to Timberwood and tackle the "Circle of Pain." 1.5 mile lap, with 0.6 mile steep climb up to and past the Timberwood water tower. The Circle of Pain takes a little over 5 minutes and the climb takes 2:30-2:50.

Garmin shows all of the data except Power. We did 6 laps. I fell off Jeff Park's wheel during the last ascension (#6) of Echo Mtn. You could see that my heartrate did not recover before the base of the climb, on laps 5 and 6. When you lose your recovery, your ticket can be punched when the effort picks up again.

Ascent depiction of the 1k climb portion. Heart rate in Red, Power in Brown, Speed in Green. The tiered nature of this climb make it great for short hard efforts. You punch it on the lowest slope, then recover just a bit. In the middle you have to work really hard - Doug and Jeff mostly sit, I had a little less gear (they rode 'cross bikes, road bike for me) so I mostly stood. The last third is false flat where you have to really work it to maintain contact with your "friends."

Ascent view of the entire 1.5 mile Circle of Pain. After the climb, Jeff and Doug keep the pace high at the front, I sit on and recover.

This might be an "interesting" little addition to the Sat am shop rides.... The group that doesn't choose this option can soft pedal for about 10 minutes letting the "heroes" do the Circle of Pain then chase back on.