Two days in a row?! Say it ain't so!

I took two days off in a row this weekend for the first time since... well... lesse.... June 5th.

Last week was a typical week, nothing crazy. Monday was the 3x20's I posted about before and then I rolled home, prepped for massage. My normal masseuse was out on maternity time so I had someone new. BIG mistake. She must have been some sort of masochist in a different life. Five days later my legs and back were still sore from the massage. It felt like someone had taken a baseball bat and beat down my legs and they just weren't recovering.

I thought I'd change up my Friday SST day and head over to the lunchtime Hains Pt ride. I have to admit, I was a bit perplexed at the flow of this ride. I expect I'll see comments or emails on this, but I really didn't get the point of the ride - let alone the amount of time involved. I rolled into HP ~12, and slid into a small warm up group. We got to moving along ~12:15. First lap, nothing exciting, getting organized - cruising ~25 mph. DC velo folks do some semi-attacking toward the gate, regroup and get going again. Rotate through the pulls for a lap, lap 2 was a little more brisk. Lap 3, well.. it just stopped rotating. I sat on front until we rolled out of the point and the slid off and soft pedaled. A couple folks rotated through and then a guy in a non-descript jersey was on front, I was in fifth wheel. The rotation stopped.

I realized at this point, the SST workout of a hard hour of riding wasn't going to happen today, so I slid out of the pack all the way to the left, settled into a pace on my own. A couple folks slid over on the wheel until we got near the gate and there were some folks attacking again - sitting up into the turn. I rolled through the turn. This was the end of 4 laps... a whopping 30 minutes of work. I rolled through the turn and back onto the north straight off the front - or so I thought. I settled back solo SST area and when I rounded the point I realized the group had dissolved and there was no one behind me. So the lunch time ride lasted 4 laps of work? ~ 30 minutes? Guess that's just weird to me.

I guess if that's the typical flow, it has to work for someone, but I'd be curious to know what folks are using that ride to accomplish.

Saturday was going to be a long ride, but when I realized Friday night that the legs weren't recovering right, it was time to listen to the body and take a whole weekend off. It got me out to the mountains with the family, gave me some nice "off the legs time." I'd been on the bike for 13 days straight, including a couple really easy days. It was weird to take two off in a row, and every time I took a breath of the clean, fresh 70° air on the Skyline Drive I had to remind myself that riding hard requires recovering hard.

And with that, we're back to training this week. Legs felt much better going into yesterday. The massage beat down soreness was gone. 3x20's became 2x20's today in the rain. They weren't great, but every day can't be great. 2x20's at 341, but it felt like my heart was coming out of my chest and rather than blow the rest of the training week, another day to listen to the body and bring it on home. 4-5 months until I have to be in any sort of form... 4-5 months, lots of time for good days and bad days.

More time on the TT bike this week. I need to get myself a TT saddle - the Selle Italia SLK's nose is like a brick.

Finally - Seal Skinz waterproof socks. They work. Wore them today in the rain and I didn't realize how wet my shoes were from the rainy intervals until I was cleaning up the bike room some 4 hours later. Drastic difference from last week when I got home with pruned feet.

Ride hard, recover hard!
VW