A MUCH NEEDED REST DAY

Today was a much needed rest day, so I have time to blog rather than go down and ride on the trainer! Last week was my biggest training week of the whole season, thanks to the fact that I only worked for two days, and did a 6 hr 330 TSS ride on Saturday in Ogden, Utah.

My goal for this training block is to work on threshold power, get plenty of time on the bike, and raise the CTL a bit more before I start doing the shorter, harder intervals that cyclocross racing requires. In a perfect world, I'd have the threshold work done and be doing the cross specific work already, but I'm a little behind and trying to play catch up.

Last Thursday's ride was supposed to be threshold intervals, but I had to work a little late then take the kids to bmx. I almost went down to ride the trainer at about 10 pm, but ended up skipping it. I tried to justify this by telling myself I was a little tired and needed a rest day, but the truth is I was just to lazy, and I missed a good opportunity to put in some additional work. I didn't make this day count, but I tried to make up for it a little on Friday. Friday was scheduled to be an easy recovery ride as we had to travel to Utah. I only had about an hour to ride, but got in a good one, doing about 50 minutes of sweet spot riding, with a good hard burst every 5 minutes, then right back to sweet spot. This ride only lasted about an hour, but I was cooked. Spent the rest of the day in the car traveling to Utah with Tawnya. She was going to take her spinning certification course, which would be all day Saturday. The kids stayed home with grandma, so I had all day Saturday to ride. I looked up a ride on map my ride for a basic idea of where to go. I rode for a solid 6 hours, and there was tons of climbing. At one point on a hill in a residential area, I had to swerve back and forth across the road because it was so steep I could barley keep the bike moving. I also did a cool climb up to Snow Basin ski resort, followed by a screaming descent. I did some good hard climbing, and just enjoyed the ride, it was awesome. Unfortunately, after the 6 hr ride came the 6 hr drive home as we had to get back for Mariah's soccer game Sunday.

So Sunday I went to the soccer game, which was also awesome. Tawnya is the coach, and she does a great job motivating and working with those girls. They played like a team, and had a great game. Mariah played hard, scoring six goals and hustling her little but off. She is sure a little athlete, and she plans on doing a few cross races this fall as well. I can't wait to see her out there tearin' it up. After the game I squeezed in another 2 hr ride while Tawnya and the kids hung out with grandma. I felt surprisingly good considering the long ride the previous day. I did 30 minutes of threshold work, 5 min at threshold, 1 min recovery, repeat. After that I spent some time on a little single track trail working on bike handling and other 'cross skills. Then I finished the ride off with Trey, cruising around the neighborhood. Another great ride to cap off the week.

I ended up with 1003 TSS for the week, by far the most of any recent training week, and actually probably a little more than I should have done. Adding to much training load at once, or bring up the CTL to fast, can be less than ideal. However, I feel that I have sufficient base and a training history that can support this increase in training load. Hopefully I'm right and I don't end up getting sick! This hard week brought the CTL up to 85, and the TSB to a whopping -52, so like I said, today was much needed rest. Next week will be more of the same, with a little more intensity added in to start to prep for the racing that is just around the corner. The following week will be a recovery week, which comes just before the racing starts. Dig the hole a little deeper this week, then rest, recover, and hopefully come out ready to race. Only time will tell if my plan will work!

Keep it PURE,
Brad