Race 1 Plus 10 Days Now What?

So why was there such a long gap between posting my race write up? There are a few sorry excuses and some cycling fan excuses, which are much more acceptable-sort of I suppose, but not really. Let's start with the sorriest reasons and what I learned from them.

I rode the Wolfpack road race with no exotic nutrition supplements before or after. That was mostly the plan, but not to the exclusion of taking care of my engine. A bad idea on retrospect. I loaded the Jeep and headed home as the rain really set in. The college kids where going to have interesting race conditions, a little bit of Belgium in North Carolina.

I was smart enough to put aside a bottle with some sports drink a protein bar and a couple of bagels. I guess that wasn't too bad, but I had some recovery drinks at home. However, I spaced on packing any. I turned on the seat warmer on, which felt good on my legs and headed out. I intellectually felt good about my first effort, but I could feel the ride and the rotten weather settling into my legs and oddly enough my triceps. Did I stretch much after the ride? No. Was that a mistake? Oh yeah definitely-more on that later.

I got a long hot shower after the hour ride home and still forgot to put much of anything back. The rest of the day was spent helping out around the house and enjoying Valentine's Day with my lovely and amazingly tolerant wife. I felt pretty good the rest of the day after my shower. I could tell I had ridden very hard, but I wasn't destroyed. My very smart wife prepared a great post race dinner of grilled salmon, sweet potatoes, green beans and some pasta. Tomorrow, I felt pretty rough in spite of the great dinner.

I got up the next morning to find my legs were very stiff and sore. Now I remembered I should have stretched. My triceps were almost as sore as my legs. Now I remembered I didn't drink anything for recovery. I'd kick my own ass if my legs weren't so sore.

I stretched and got out and rode a short distance at a moderate pace, which helped my legs. Why the heck were my arms so sore? I talked with a cyclist friend who is also a life science guy who asked if I was pulling up hard on the handlebars on the hills for leverage. Yeah I definitely did more than I normally did. Well that mystery was now solved, because that's what I did out of frustration at being dropped and in trying to get back in the race.

I've gotten back into training mode, but I haven't been able to ride as much as I would like because the weather has been pretty bad-cold (cold for a southerner), my Garmin bit the dust without any explanation and the Tour of California was on. A quick side note. The Garmin guys are the best I've encountered in a long time with regard to customer service. It's obvious they care, really care, and back their products to the maximum. I have a total man crush on them! I will never ride with any other bike computer-ever. They've earned my loyalty and fandom.

I enjoyed watching the Tour of California even though Leipheimer pretty much had it put away after the second stage. Given the choice to watch the ToC or ride, I watched. Bad decision, but the weather didn't help. I could have ridden my trainer, and did a couple of times, but not enough. I also spent some time working with my editor on planning the column. I also spent some time working on a sponsorship strategy. Good excuses? Not really. Do I need to try harder to train more. To quote Yoda, "do or do not there is no try."

So now what? It's time to get back in the saddle where I need to be. I need to more proactively schedule training with my wife based on kid schedules. The weather is going to get better, but that's not going to matter.

This weekend is a very odd occurrence. The kids are with the "ex's" and my wife is taking our oldest daughter to a soccer tournament. I'll be alone! Yeah I will miss my wife and kids, but I'm going to get a little under 48 hours of limited responsibilities and loads of time to ride. The plan is to do two LSD rides-longer slower distance. I'd like to see if I can stay in the saddle 6 hours and see how far I can go. I will be smarter about nutrition on these rides before, during and after.

I am jealous of the pros who blithely Twitter they are heading out on an 5-6 hour training ride with "the boys". I wish I was one of "the boys"! I know I can't be, but I can ride to be the best I can be this year. That's the goal!