Yesterday (short interval day) started with a small breakfast, coffee, and Ryan telling me “your legs are starting to look less fat”  (like most men, he’s got quite the way with words).

I headed out around 6:15 for a half hour warmup before looping back to my pain cave- Lenow Rd. It’s not far from my house, and for this workout, is the best place I’ve got around here other than the long, flat river road in Shelby Forest (a solid 45 minute drive from my house). The workout is one I’ve written about on here before- 3 repeats of an 8 minute interval that starts in zone 3 and ends in zone 5. Despite my struggle to recover from heat exhaustion and dehydration on Sunday, I was feeling pretty froggy.

I generally felt great and seemed to be hitting my usual power numbers pretty easily, but once I was back home looking at Training Peaks, it seemed I hadn’t done quite as well as in the past. I also didn’t feel nearly as tired as I usually do. Not really sure what happened there, but coach & I ended up revising the day so that my second ride included some 1 min all-out efforts.

Me Gusta.

Today, the intervals were longer- two 20 min race pace efforts on the single speed. I took to the Tour D’ Wolf Trail since it’s got just enough small roller hills to keep the heart rate up.

Side note: a lot of locals HATE the TDW trail. It’s in the middle of a huge public park, and the trails are overused/abused on a regular basis. They’re rutted, mudholed, and re-routed enough times to be 10 feet wide in a lot of areas. However, I like things that are historically significant to the things that interest me. That trail was once the site for one of the biggest MTB races in the US. Some of the fastest mountain bikers from that era (the last TDW race was in 2001) have touched their tires upon that ground. Knowing that adds motivation to my ride.

I felt great again. Now I’ve got an afternoon spin and two recovery rides before the next two days of long distance heat torture this weekend.

Sunday, I kicked off the killer training week with 6 hours riding the MTB (mostly) on the road. It was hot. I’m not one to complain about heat, and, well, I’m still not complaining, I’m just making the general statement that, during the course of my ride, it went from  “hot” to “really fucking hot.”

There was nothing special about the route- I rode through Arlington, Gallaway, Lambert, Oakland, once around Herb Parson’s Lake, and then back home through Germantown. Sometime before hour 3, I realized that I was overheating, and the EFS powder in my camelbak was not sitting well. I stopped at a church and tried diluting it more and hosing myself down, but it never really improved. I’d thought before that I’d just mixed it too strong, but I’ve come to realize that it just doesn’t agree with me.

I also realized at the Herb Parson’s Lake trail that riding a rigid fork over the root beds after 3.5 hours of road riding sucks pretty bad and spent most of the lap dreaming about my first ride on the RDO. Before hitting the road again, I hosed myself down once more and was off to finish the last hour & a half of the ride. I knew soon after that I was pretty far past being able to cool off, and that my only hope was a dark rain cloud in front of me, but I seemed to be tailing it by a few minutes.

The last hour was pretty brutal. My brain was boiling inside my skull, so I was feeling incredibly loopy. I thought about calling for a ride home, but wasn’t about to admit defeat. Looking back, I’m surprised I was able to find my way home. I did, though. When I walked through the door, I immediately went to take a cold shower. Me = 1, Heat = 0… I think.

I felt bad the rest of the day. I felt bad most of Monday. I’m also stoked that I gutted it out. Whatever doesn’t kill you & whatnot…

The remainder of the day was spent mostly laying around in compression tights drinking ice water, eating the lasagna that Ryan made, and taking photos with random large objects brought over by one of Ryan’s teammates who is getting ready to move to Germany. He took the gun back, but left us with an interesting object he’d found on the side of the road during a ride…

 

 

Next on the schedule?

Monday- recovery/chiropractor
Tuesday- short intervals
Wednesday- long intervals