Anticipation
I haven’t posted in a while due to evening obligations. Not much to report, though.
I haven’t ridden a moving bicycle in a week and a half — since LAST Tuesday at Beatty. I’ve been on the Computrainer at Per4mance Training twice — the last two Wednesdays. Other than that, That’s it. Nothing. Nada. Zip.
I don’t know if my time off the bike affected it, (I’m sure it did), but this past Wednesday was the final assessment of my 12-week training program at Per4mance. By my “midterm” in early February, I had gained 13%, or about 20 Watts. I don’t think I did that well Wednesday. I know I squeezed out a few more watts, but not 20. I haven’t gotten the final results, but I don’t think it was more than 5 or 10 watts. Had I been on the bike more in the week leading up to the “final”, would I have done better? I don’t know. Does it matter? Not really. They’re just numbers. But, I like numbers. Maybe it’s my competitiveness, maybe it’s my need for data. I don’t know, but I wish I could go back and do it again. I do know I gave it all I had that night. I felt like I was going to DIE after the first four minutes, and it’s a twenty minute time trial! I ended up taking another ice bath that night. That’s like legal non-drug pain relievers. 10 minutes in ice, and the muscle pain is gone, with little to no soreness the next day. Only the first 5 seconds are uncomfortable. Wearing wool socks in the bath keeps the toes from freezing.
So, tomorrow is the Diva day trip to Uwharrie. This will also serve as my pre-ride for the Uwharrie Race on Sunday. I like Uwharrie. It’s a short race, but not easy. It’s a “sleeper”. It’s in the middle of nowhere, but you feel like you’re in the mountains. It has plenty of climbing, and some fun rocky stuff with a tough creek crossing and subsequent technical steep climb.
Uwharrie is the race I use to judge the effectiveness of my winter training. I usually surprise myself here and do better than I expect. We’ll see. I know there are more people showing up for this race than in the last few years, as I’ve talked a couple of Divas into doing the race. One of them will be in my class (Madonna). Also, last year’s race was on Easter, so turn out was low. At least with a good showing, I’ll have a better idea of where I stand…
So, I’ll report back after the race.
