Recovery Coming Along Well

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was under the weather late last week and over the weekend but my recovery is coming along nicely and I felt better Monday and felt a lot better last night. I have not done any interval or speed work in a week and only rode shorter recovery rides over the weekend, nothing hard at all, although I did hike Devil's Lake all day Sunday. Last night the weather was great so I figured I'd make the best of it and stay out until sunset and push it a little bit to open up the legs to see how I was feeling after a week off of any hard efforts. I rode out to Muskego and did some sets of hill sprints up the finishing hill of this weekend's race course, only 2 sets of 6 sprints with recovery only being the time that it took me to turn around and start the sprint again. I was dying after about the 3rd sprint of the 2nd set and threw up on the 4th sprint but that was due to the residual mucous that I still have from being sick and I kind of gagged on it when I was trying to breathe, yeah, it's gross, but that's what happened. I finished out the 5th and 6th sprint and headed out of the park towards Big Bend and did a loop out there and then made my way to one of my favorite hills, Tans Dr. and decided to test my fitness there by doing one climb to see where I'm at compared to my PR. I figured that since I haven't done much of anything for a week that I'd be pretty slow and figured on throwing up again but surprisingly I broke my PR by 7 seconds! Now, could I have even gone up the hill a second time, maybe not, I hit HR numbers I haven't hit in a long time, 194 was my max up the hill, my chest physically hurt after that. I think I was just exceeding my limit to prove that I still had some fitness, but I know I couldn't have done 6 repeats up the hill like I did last week. That's the problem with a little layoff, for the most part you can still feel great for one hard day of riding or one really hard effort, but try to ride hard for 3 days in a row or try repeated hard efforts up a hill, that's when you'll realize that you've lost something. So yeah, I was good yesterday, today I'll probably feel it though when I try to ramp it up again, all cylinders might not be firing tonight but I'll try again anyways. It's raining right now but it's supposed to be better later, so no doubt I'll be able to get outside and enjoy the 60 degree temps. Like I said I'm going to try another harder effort tonight but if I notice that I'm not feeling it or my body is not responding then I'll just do an easy ride and do a hard ride tomorrow. Friday will obviously be an easier day ahead of Saturday's races.

On the home front, I'm getting stressed about my freakin' basement wall because it has some nice horizontal cracks and step cracks in it that are ever-expanding and I'm thinking one of these days I'm going to be sitting in my recliner enjoying a Guinness and it's all going to come tumbling down on me. I've been keeping an eye on them the last few weeks and they are getting bigger so I finally made the call today to have someone come take a look, they can't get out until the 21st, I was hoping like tomorrow would be nice! Oh well, I have two weeks now to sit and watch them get bigger, wish me luck. If the bill comes to the 3 or 4 grand that I've heard it will cost to put up the steel beams, then I might be selling my bike to pay for it, anyone want a CAAD8 with all Campy Carbon Record and carbon wheels? Final cost dependent upon my bill from the contractor of course....I'm kidding, I'm not selling my bike, well, maybe..... until next time..........

Family Fun

Yesterday was a great day with the family at Devil's Lake State Park where we hiked around the entire lake, up and down the bluffs on both sides of the lake. We were there for most of the day and the weather was great, mid 60s and sunny, a little windy, but it felt good as it kept me from sweating too much. It was Melissa's b-day so it was nice to have all of us, including the dog, up there and together. I've been under the weather since about Thursday of last week and haven't really felt like doing much of anything but it was nice to get out in the fresh air and today I'm feeling a little better and hopefully will be 100% in the next couple of days. A lot of my co-workers have been sick in the past week and I figured since I am healthier than almost all of them, that I'd be immune to their sickness, turns out I wasn't but I didn't get it nearly as bad as a few of them so I have that going for me. I did ride for a couple of hours over the weekend, basically a couple of recovery rides, nothing too long. Today I'll be getting out after work because it's a beautiful day and I'll do about 35-40 miles at a fairly easy pace just to make sure I don't stress the immune system too much as I recover, and I'll probably do the same tomorrow just to make sure I'm back to normal before I push it too hard. Wednesday and Thursday will be hard days and Friday will be an easy spin ahead of Saturday's races. I plan on doing 2 races Saturday, the Masters 3/4 and the Masters 1/2/3, one is in the morning, the other in the afternoon, so there is plenty of time to recover. I don't care if I get dropped in both of them, I just need to get the race time in so that I can make a decent showing at least in Iowa in a couple of weeks. The Masters 3/4 shouldn't be bad, looks like the same guys I raced last year for the most part. Other than that, the weather looks like it might be improving gradually to the point where we might actually see 60 degrees on a regular basis. Wouldn't that be nice?? Congrats to all my teammates that did the Baraboo RR this weekend as well in nasty conditions, it's a tough race without the cold and rain, so hats off to them for their effort. We had a couple of 2nd place finishes and 5 other top 15 placings as well, great job by all. Until next time.......