Transparent Racing: Training in Taos

For those of you who don't know me, here's a bit about me: I'm 21 years old, a Taos, NM local, and a Computer Science major at Middlebury College. I've been racing Pro for 3 or 4 years now (can't remember) and this past March I was selected to represent the US at the 2009 Pan-American mountain bike Continental Championships in Santiago, Chile (here's a picture).

I am back in Taos now after taking last year off (from school) to race and train in South America (Argentina and Chile) and am getting used to speaking English and working to make this my (and Transparent Racing's) most successful season!
Today I took a 4 hour mountain bike ride (some of it was on pavement) with 3 15-minute hill acceleration repeats. These are brutal intervals where you climb for 15 minutes at hill repeat intensity (7-8 perceived exertion) and sprint for 1 minute every 2 minutes during the interval. (Here's a video from just after one of them):

I have been doing quite a few of these recently (I think my coaches want to rub in the fact that they are sitting on the beach in Hawaii, or maybe they're just hoping to tire me out so much that I won't bother them while they're on vacation) and have figured out a good place to do them. I ride from my house in El Salto (North of Taos) to El Nogal (South of Taos), do my intervals on three different trails near there, El Nogal, Devisadero and Ojitos, ride trails for a while to add time, then ride home (see map below).

Today I decided to ride the full Devisadero Loop after my intervals and my ride ended up being 4:05 and 45 miles with 5325 feet of climbing. It was a beautiful day out, between 65 and 75 degrees and partly cloudy. There was a bit of a breeze which kept it good and cool.
Here are a couple of shots from today's ride: