Spoke too soon

Hilariously enough, my leg started hurting shortly after my last blog.

Right quads have had enough of this shit!

My cardio and power was trudging forward at an insane pace, but my muscles I think were lagging in recovery. So they said stop.

I listened.

It’s always hard to sit on the sidelines. I missed a race that I’d been looking forward to. Sometimes you have to listen, though. I mean, you should always listen, but, you know, I’m pretty terrible at that.

Getting better though … or at least trying to.

So, we’re regrouping. I need to figure it out, and I need to figure it out fast, because I can’t go into 150 miles with a sore leg. I’ve been slowly building back a little bit to some tempo work. So far, it’s been going pretty well. I even threw in some sprints, and all seems well.

I absolutely LOVE going full noise. It just feels so good.

I’m focusing more on recovery right now than high intensity work. My VO2 was looking amazing there for a few sitting at 58. Now Garmin is making me feel bad by quickly “taking away” my fitness. Sometimes playing the numbers game can mess with your head. But I’m not going to let it phase me. It’s just an estimate after all, I mean, the only way you can measure VO2 is to literally strap a mask to your face and physically measure your breaths. Always remember that there’s limitations to this stuff to keep your mental game in check.

I guess I just need to build my engine up a little bit more slowly. So that’s what I plan on doing. Now that the weather’s nice, I’m going to get outside and get more miles in that way. I think a VO2 workout once a week will still be beneficial, but not as much as I had been doing.

I don’t know why but this plan is significantly more aggressive than last year. VO2, threshold and anaerobic, all in the same week. Last year’s was mostly sweet spot, focused on sustained below- and at-threshold power (which is what I need for an endurance race) rather than this like all FTP and above stuff.

I mean, hell yeah, it is working, clearly, as my power and fitness are (were?) through the roof.

But recovery from those types of efforts are notoriously long and difficult. I know that from a training perspective. Clearly it didn’t take very long to verify and confirm that, yes, that’s actually not BS. Not that I believed that I was some special case, but I just thought I could hang for a few weeks.

My next race is in just under 2 weeks. 62 miles on the Gravelero route. I’ve never ridden that one on a not windy day, so hoping for some nice weather. I came in at 3:59 last time, so let’s see if we can beat that! I’m happy to be fueling better, eating better, and sleeping so much. Still between 7-9 hours with some nice daytime naps. Man, I love naps.

My core is the strongest it’s ever been. I haven’t missed a beat on that front. My weight is back hovering around 120 (lost those 5 IRONMAN pounds finally). That six pack is starting to peek through again ;) Just in time for the warmer weather. My clothes are feeling way more loose, so I’ve definitely got more muscle mass than before. I’m proud of all that work that I put in building up strength.

It wasn’t long ago that doing a plank was super hard and shaky for 30 seconds. Now I’m like 4 minutes? Pffft. I’m on it.

Now we just need to put it all together.

Growing pains.

(More like growing old pains, maybe?)

Nonetheless, I’m looking forward to dying on my gravel bike once again.

Let’s go!