Two Wheel Blogs

Saturday morning. Seven AM. Sitting here watching it rain. Check the weather for tomorrow's TT. Partly cloudy, hot and humid with a 7mph wind...

Hmmm, I think I'd rather have today's weather. The extra humidity might outweigh the few extra degrees in terms of air density. Plus the winds are calm out there right now. Plus wet roads seem faster.

Faster roads, faster air, it all adds up to less time in the hurt box.

I haven't been hurting much lately. Since Tuesday of this week I've eased up on my training to let my system rest and recover. Yesterday's workout wasn't much more than a warm up. Today's will be similar. Just get the legs moving.

The fitness is there. This week has added a dose of freshness. Tomorrow we'll find out if they add up to decent form.

It's starting to heat up really well out there now. Yesterday I managed to get out for a little while late in the afternoon. Despite my consumption of 2 big bottles of advanced hydration formula I had to dial it back after about an hour of hard tempo.

That ended this little training block. Today's all about rest and recovery. Something on the order of 30-50 TSS should do it.

That should leave some time open today to do a little necessary maintenance. My Eriksen's in need of a little TLC. I brought home quite a bit of road grime on Sunday's ride with Andy. We avoided the storm but we did get rained on enough to get a little messy.

By the time I got home yesterday I didn't really have energy left over for a workout. Now that wasn't necessarily a bad thing because I had been pushing things pretty hard the past few days. I told myself that if I expected to be at all ready for the Wednesday Night TT I should at least turn the cranks a few times.

A simple spin to flush out those tired leg muscles would be the ticket.

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Unit and I hit out on the road yesterday for about an hour's ride. As he rolled out I distinctly remember hearing him say something about "recovery". Cool, I thought to myself. After two tough days of riding this weekend an easy Monday spin should bring a little life back into these legs.

A mile down the road - actually up, because he lives at the bottom of a hill - I'm wheezing and gasping for breath, legs on fire. This is recovery?

That was much better. Yesterday was a little cool. Manageable, but cool. Today... Today would have been the perfect day for a race.

That wasn't in my plan though. I scheduled an easy day today because I've committed to a local TT series which starts tomorrow. Today I'd planned to get an hour's easy spinning in my legs. You know, give them a nice rest.

Trouble was, it was so incredibly nice out I ended up riding a bit longer than I wanted to. I also happened to meet up with Shawn. We got to talking as we rode. We parted ways when he finished his workout. I rode on for a bit longer thinking I hadn't yet ridden an hour.

Ah well. So I won't be as fresh as I'd planned. Big deal. It was worth the extra time chatting and enjoying a great late spring afternoon.

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We've had a really nice run of 3 days here where the weather's been too good to pass up. Being one to take advantage of a good situation, I did my own little training camp, piling up nearly 150 TSS per day. Needless to say, today's rain showers didn't bother me a whole lot. A little spinning on the old rollers was just the ticket for me this afternoon.

So there I am, riding my rollers and enjoying whatever iTunes happens to serve up, and I notice a certain ticking sound coming from my front wheel area.

Now a ticking sound, one that repeats with every rotation, can't be good. I looked at the brakes. They had clearance. There's no computer pickup on the fork at all so that couldn't be it. "Could be in the hub" I tell myself. Hmm, that's really not good.

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