Time Off

I decided not to train at all while sick.  I’ve spent the past 3 days just sitting around eating, drinking, and sleeping.  It seems like yesterday was the worst of it, since I woke up feeling significantly better this morning.  If I’m feeling even better after work then I will consider going for an easy ride this evening.

Getting sick is really disappointing when training is going so well and you’re feeling stronger than ever.  I had big plans for this week and it takes a good deal of restraint to hold back and stay off the bike.  I can definitely see what motivates people to dig themselves deeper by pushing hard when their body is already suffering, but I’m confident that taking time off was the right decision.

I will be sticking with my training plan; next week will be mostly a rest week.  I think I’ll do a 10mi TT and attempt to set a PR and achieve this month’s TT goal.

Sick

I had two good hard weeks and was about to go into my last one before a recovery week… and now I’m sick.  I had a pretty bad sore throat but now it seems like it’s just going to be a typical cold — hopefully a mild one.

I’m still not quite sure how I feel about training when sick.  A lot of folks say “if it’s above the neck, you can ride,” but I still tend toward believing that more rest is better.  I guess if I’m feeling significantly better after work I will consider riding tonight.

Besides the cold, training is going very well.  I’m increasing my weekly hours and still feeling relatively fresh and I think I’m getting consistently stronger.  I’ve got a crit coming up, a few more road races, and that will be the end of the season.

Race Report: Leesville Gap Road Race

The awful… I mean absolutely TERRIBLE… roads made this race fun.  I tried to stay near the front through all the bad pavement before the climb.  I stayed safe aside from having my front derailleur come out of adjustment (I couldn’t get into the big ring until I found time to make some adjustments).  I blew up on the big climb and found myself in a group of about 20 with another 20 riders up the road.  Without a real chance of bringing the front group back, we took it pretty easy on the way into the finish.

I guess a lot of folks don’t like the bad pavement, but I thought it made things interesting.  Fun race — climbing was the weakness that got me this time.

Race Report: 4th of July Crit

The 4th of July Crit has lots of turns and only one real straightaway.  The race was not very demanding fitness-wise, but required a good deal of pack skills to stay near the front.  Of course, my pack skills aren’t so great so I ended up being filtered to the back.  I was tail-gunning for the first half of the race and decided I should move up, so I sprinted hard into the finishing straightaway and made up quite a few spots… until someone decided to crash right in front of me.  I avoided the downed rider and found myself right back where I started.  Later on, I tried a different technique and moved up a few spots at a time on the straights and corners until I was somewhere in the first third of the pack.  Following a prime, everything slowed down, the pack bunched, and I ended up at the back again.  I stayed where I was for the last few laps, avoided a big pileup on the bell lap, and rolled across somewhere in the bottom 10.

This race definitely highlighted one of my weaknesses: maintaining position in the pack.  In collegiate races, maintaining your position near the front of the pack isn’t as important because with the smaller fields, you can move up very quickly late in a race.  In these USCF races, you can’t expect to be able to do that.  I guess it’s a skill that will improve with time and experience.

Fun race!