Afternoon off means great training opportunity

I've been told that probably the steepest climb in the Albuquerque area is the climb up Rd 333 to the La Luz Trailhead so I decided if I want to hill climb I might as well try it first. It IS steep and long. And on this particular day I had to ride through a bit of slushy snow, but it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be.

But OH MY GOSH it was colder than I expected. I should have thought of that considering I knew the trailhead is over 7,000'. While standing there my GPS showed 7,037'. Going up the wind was pretty crazy which of course made it colder.  Coming down was much colder even because of course I was traveling a lot faster. The road was slushy, wet, strewn with the cinder grit enough that I took it pretty easy but I was still near 30 miles per.

Since the climb wasn't as bad as I thought and I was already warmed up I headed straight for the climb up to the Tram. Another big climb but again not as bad as I thought it might be. The wind was getting harder and harder so as I came down I really thought I was going to freeze.

The afternoon was mostly sunny so that helped but the wind just kept getting colder but I decided I still had time for one more climb before I needed to head back across the river. I turned left again when I got back to Tramway, passed the car then turned left and headed up the road to Ellena Gallegos Trailhead. I had done this climb so I knew what to expect. It proceeded without a hitch though the legs were starting to feel pretty tired by the top. After a brief rest, brief because it wasn't getting any warmer standing there in the wind, I decided I didn't have time for any more today. Which I wasn't too disappointed about.

Maybe by this time next year I'll be able to do these much quicker. I love climbing and I want to be good at it but I will have to have a lot of practice and hopefully lose several more pounds. Hmmm, what's next?
Maybe head to Tijeras and into the mountains there! We'll see.