We took the little guy to my family's home in Missouri this past weekend. This meant two things (as far as this blog is concerned); 1) a lot of time w/ family and Jack and 2) no time for training.
#1 was great, and always is. I mostly forgot about training, racing or even riding the bike. Sometimes it can be a little too consuming, and it's good to get away and focus exclusively on my family.
#2 was an interesting exercise in how much my conditioning has changed in the past 3 years of cycling as my primary form of exercise. Because I needed to do some type of exercise during the 4-day trip, I chose to run one of my old routes. It's about 3 miles, with some nice hills thrown in for good measure. Distressingly, I found my hip flexors quite sore after the 1st run. Knee pain also reared its ugly head again, as I suppose my old IT band problems have not been stretched out properly. The second run I did kind of worked through the soreness, but it was humbling indeed. I think I can manage a good pace, but running-specific muscles have atrophied.
The worst part, though, was getting back on the bike tonight. After flying for 5 hours last night (Jack was a trooper, sleeping most of the time), I was surely dehydrated and tired today. But I was determined to get some hard efforts in, so I worked in 3 x 6 mins at 30 min TT pace, with 30s sprints thrown in every 2 mins. This sounded easy, but keeping the TT pace at 275W and the sprints at 350W was a challenge today. But now that it's done hopefully the rest of the week will feel OK.
I also have signed up for 3 races in April. Because I missed 2 races in March that I wanted to do b/c they were full, I have decided to just sing up early regardless of my availability. I figure it's a $20 insurance policy so I can race if I choose. Anyway, I need to get back to racing, as it will have been 2 mos since the Long Beach criterium. That's too much time between races.
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