This was the mantra today over and over in my head, just keep spinning along. I was trying to stay down in Z2 for the ride but after two days off my legs were itching to stretch out and blast a bit. I was able to reign myself back in a few times and I never really opened it up today. 90 minutes of Z2 with a few moments of Z3 thrown in.
It was a warm morning today, near 54 degrees and after my warm-up I was ready to go but after digging myself into a deep hole over the weekend with 2 1/2 hours most all of it at a tempo pace. I might want to explain what I mean by deep hole – I use training peaks to track my accumulated training loads each week. It does a pretty good job of tracking and letting me know when I have pushed myself for too long a period without enough rest. This weekend topped off a higher volume week last week than I normally ride. So I took a couple days off to recuperate. Today I had some fresher legs and was ready to go – hold on there big guy, there is a number of training days still to come this week.
Nutrition wise – yesterday was a disaster! Work travel days tend to be tough but I was doing well all the way until dinner time then I just started eating too much – the dinner was healthy but the vegan cookie with peanut butter smeared on top just wasn’t at all. Ugh – I was super tired and very hungry when I started dinner then I just gave in! I find myself doing this once in a while when I am really tired. Yesterday was that day. But back on the mend today. Luckily my weight wasn’t too effected other than having too much sodium last night and retaining water my weight was stable this morning – down 9lbs. from my high back in June.
So my warning to all is to keep hunger in check when possible by realizing what your trigger times are and trying to manage them as best you can – without bashing down a peanut butter smeared vegan cookie!! Sheesh!!
Ride safe all,
Jon
Cycling Better 