Today was my big race of the year. All the training culminating in one day. You can time it so you can do two such “A” days or maybe even more if you cluster them around one another, but the logistics are tough with kids. This year I’d have one shot.
We woke up at a reasonable time, ate breakfast as a family, casually went about our morning, ran errands, and then went to the bird museum/park from which we returned around dinner time.
No racing involved.
Last week I was doing some random weeding while the girls were playing outside, stood up, and knew my back was going to be out of commission for a few days. This has happened before and I’m always just about as good as new a week later. There was hope!
By the time Wednesday rolled around this week, I was pretty doubtful and then things oddly only degraded. What felt like a difficult decision early in the week made itself a clear one. This is a tough course with some seriously technical hiking while carrying a bike. Given the fact I am walking with a severe hobble and can’t stand up straight, well, yeah.
No stats to run through, but the training was good. I got in a ton of hours and have seen my functional threshold power (the wattage you can theoretically produce for an hour) jump from where it has lingered for many years right around 300 watts to nearly 340. I’ve done a lot more quality miles, but have also incorporated a lot more core work. The bar wasn’t very high because previously I’d done near zero, but it was a few hours a week. The irony? Core work is supposed to keep you away from back trouble. Hah.
The downside of the increased strength? Muscle is heavy. I’m about 10% heavier than my all-time best race weight. You could argue I was too light then and I’d probably agree, but I’m still 10lbs over where I’ve hovered for the past 15 years. I’m not eating as well as I could, but given the amount of work I’m putting in I can really only chalk it up to muscle mass; I don’t look like what I’ve looked like when I’ve hit this weight before.
Power up, weight up. How would that translate to a race with a ton of climbing? Probably not as well as I’d hoped, but that’s moot. I’ve got another whole year to figure it out.
Anyway, injuries suck. I’ve never missed a race due to one before. The extra sting of this one is I had a horrible day at it last year and this was going to hopefully be a day of redemption. Instead, I’m out $175 and have nothing to show for it. I might ride is solo someday soon, but it’s not the same as being out there with others, and we have a lot of vacation coming up that is only going to degrade my fitness.
We do have two events to close out the season. The first is a long mountain bike ride/race in town. I placed second in it last year, but it is two weeks away, I have two rides on the mountain bike this year, and I’m not sure I’ll even feel better then. The last event was supposed to be more of a touring gravel ride with Rebecca and friends.
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