R and R

Rest and Relaxtion are underrated if you ask me.  I'm coming to the end of a 12 day vacation and just finished the last of my really hard training for the year, and to say the least, I have enjoyed slowing down.  Luckily for me, work won't get too stressful for another month or so, so I can enjoy this for a bit longer.

Funny thing is, you don't really realize how wound up you are until you relax a bit.

I also didn't even realize it was time work in some rest from the bike until I got a head cold last week and started doing some reading online about training and such.  Knowing I needed to nurse the cold away before this weekends racing, I started to look at the past few weeks of training, and realized every ride I had done for the past 4-5 weeks had either been intervals, openers, or racing.

I've also decided, the days of above LT intervals are done.  With the racing I've done, and all the racing still to come over the next 5 weeks, I'm going to cut back on the intensity during the week in order to stay fresh for the weekends.  This is not say I'm gonna kick it on the couch eating Cheetos only getting up for a race on Saturday.  I will be taking Mondays off.  Tues will be 1.5 to 2hrs easy with some sprints thrown in.  Wed. will be my only real hard day with 2x20min sub-LT intervals on the cross course.  Thursday will be off, and Friday openers to get ready for Saturday's racing.

Sundays will be my day.  My day to just enjoy riding a bike.  No structure.  Just me, a mountain pass and some music.  Last Sunday, I did a half hour warm up before tackling Pine Creek Pass for some LT work.  After topping out, 20 min and 1000' vertical later, I looked to my left and remembered a co-worker talking about how the Forest Service just regraded the dirt road at the top.  So took the left and keep climbing.  With the fall colors on the trees and 360 degree views all around, this became one of those epic rides you remember for years.  So I'm going to look for more of these before its time to rack the bike for the winter.

Well, this cold has now moved into my chest and I've been coughing up lung butter for the past few days.  I'm going to do a quick spin tonight and see if racing is even a possibility for tomorrow.  I'm a bit worried about trying to race with a chest cold considering I usually feel like I'm going to cough up a lung in a race when I'm healthy!!  We will see.  But needless to say I will be at the race one way or another.