Two Wheel Blogs

Today would have made a great day for another Ouachita Challenge training ride. I'm just an old guy with a house to keep up, and it's spring. Sort of. It's that time of year when you get a good couple of days and you decide it really is time to rake those leaves. And you know how those little spring cleanup chores go. You start one and it leads to another, and then another. Pretty soon the whole day is gone.

So that's sort of what happened. The leaves, the fertilizing, the fixing the holes in the siding... all that. But a body can only do that stuff for so long. When I reached a stopping point I hopped on the bike for a recovery ride.

Boy am I glad I did. Yesterday trashed my legs pretty good. About 4 seconds after mounting up today I was ready to quit. I checked my powermeter. It read about 150 watts. My legs were begging me to stop this inhumane torture. I kept going, pedaling slowly in an easy gear.

After about 10 minutes it stopped hurting so bad. That's when I had to start telling myself to hold back and not make this into a workout. At 45 minutes my legs started to feel good again. That was what I'd been looking for. It took a while, but all the wreckage from yesterday had finally been cleared away.

I ended up with just a bit over an hour of recovery at about 212 watts. Like a walk in the park. The place looks good. My legs feel fine. It's been a really good weekend.