Monday, August 14, 2006

Feeling Rested...Kinda.

I'm definitely feeling less fatigued than I had mentioned in my last post on Friday as I did get some rest yesterday. I didn't get much rest on Saturday as I was up at 6:00a.m. so that I could eat some breakfast before the Drop the Doc ride. I drove up to Dousman and did the ride, 37 miles at 24.5 mph, so it was a pretty good ride. I stayed at the front for a while in the beginning and took a few pulls, then sat on for a while in the middle of the ride. Near the end two guys took off up a little rise as I happen to come through for my pull so I pushed it hard on the hill and caught up to them near the top. One guy was blown so he dropped but I kept going with the other guy and then we were joined by my teammate Tony and we were pushing it at about 28-29 mph. The pack was about 30-40 yards behind us so we just kept pushing it. I didn't really know that we were near the end as I've only done this ride once before so I thought we were just having a go and that the pack would just catch us again. Well, after about 2 minutes we hit a flat section and the pack came sprinting by us at 35+ mph as we were actually at the finish line of the ride, which is basically a wooden sign on the side of the road. At first I was wondering why everyone was sprinting like crazy and then I realized we were at the end, which is good because at that point I was starting to get a little fried on our little breakaway. If the pack didn't catch us I probably could've gone for a little bit longer but not too much without blowing up. I have improved quite a bit this year but still not enough to hold that pace for a long distance, so I guess I still have a ways to go. It was a fun ride and I definitely got in my requisite amount of Race Simulation training. After the ride I went home, mowed the entire lawn, stained the outside of my fence, painted my back door, painted and cut some base molding for the house and then at about 8:00 I finally was able to relax and eat dinner before the Packer game. Sunday I did some more work around the house, basically cleaning the garage, pulling weeds and some other miscellaneous stuff. I was scheduled to do a 2 hour Endurance Pace ride but instead I suggested to my wife that she ride with me so we went out and did 20 miles together, which at the pace she can go took us 1.5 hours. She was pretty tired at the end of the ride as it was the longest ride she's ever done so I'm pretty proud of her for that. I was really fresh of course and could've ridden another 2 hours but it was 6:30 by the time we got back and it was time to cook dinner and relax. I ended up in bed at about 9:30, which is really early for me, but I needed the sleep. I feel rested up and ready to go today, so even though I'm scheduled for a rest day I'll probably take a little stroll on the bike just for fun, maybe an hour or so, just to keep the blood flowing. Tomorrow I've got some Over/Under Intervals scheduled so hopefully the legs feel good so that I can push those hard. The weather looks great the rest of the week so it should be a good week of riding. Until next time...happy riding!

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