Recovery

I've spent the last few days with a lot of time on the bike. And I never really gave myself a lot of time to recover from last weeks stupid move of doing the leg workouts. On Sunday I met up with Ryan to ride the race course for this weekend at Branched Oak. My legs were still feeling pretty tight but I was hoping that if I got out and rode it might loosen them up.

When Ryan and I got going I decided to take the first lap pretty easy to get things stretched out and then put out some effort later. After the first lap my legs were still feeling pretty tight so I let Ryan lead the 2nd lap and told him to go at whatever pace he wanted. He set a pretty good pace on the opening section which is a very long bumpy open section in a open praire and I just can't carry much speed through it. I struggled to catch up with Ryan and he wasn't going his hardest. I'm worried about people getting away from me on this section. On the rest of the lap we mixed it up a bit with some hard efforts and my legs just couldn't get loose.

On the 3rd lap we had Corey waiting for us. We had seen him out on the course earlier and he said let's ride some laps. I led out the 3rd lap and he stayed with me and I felt like I was slowing him down the whole time. When we started the 4th lap he led out and I was suffering to hang on the whole time. Corey is one of the fastest local racers and he totally barried me. I managed to hang on to his wheel for about a 1/4 of the way through and ended up dropping off the back. It was perfect for what I needed to do though. I needed to really get pushed through the course. It need to keep training with the faster riders like him. Thanks Cornbread we need to do it again sometime.

On Monday I was up early again and met up with the Saturday morning crew for a road ride. We headed out of town and the legs were feeling a bit better. The ride was plagued with flats though. We were out riding on highway 2 which seems to be a mess and I always get flats when riding on it. We had one flat on the way out and then on the way back to town we had another flat and then after we hit town and I was off on my own I finally got a flat of my own. I was hoping to make it home and I just put some air in it but it didn't last long before I had to stop for the full change. After I got home the rest of yesterday was spent hanging with my Aunt and Uncle that from Oregon that I hadn't seen in a couple of years. It was a good time but the only problem was that I was down at my Grandma's and she had out all of her homemade candy and I ate way to much.

Today was Tuesday Night Crits and I was just feeling tired and a bit sluggish. I met up with a couple of teammates at the shop before going over and I could just feel that I didn't have the legs. When we got out to the crits I jumped in and rode several laps with the group but when the group picked up the pace I couldn't hold on. Again I was a little disappointed about how I did tonight.

My goal for the rest of the week is to get my legs fully recovered by Saturday. I'm pretty close in the points standings for my category in the series so I want/need to have a good showing at this race and the last one in a couple of weeks. Later.

Harp