Health Check

I think I'm finally getting over my cold; it took about a week. I was feeling slightly better Friday and Saturday; good enough that I did some easy riding on the trainer both days. I felt much worse on Sunday though, and I decided not to go to work on Monday. We had some water in the basement with all the rain over the weekend, and battling that probably didn't help my health. Anyway, yesterday, I finally started feeling much better.

So, I decided to go to the Tuesday night club ride at the track. A ton of people showed up; I don't know if it was because of the race this weekend or what, but it was kind of crazy. I actually felt really good on the bike from a technical perspective. I don't know if it was from laying on the couch and watching cycling videos all weekend or what, but I felt super relaxed and super smooth (at least, at low speeds... as the speed went up, I tightened up).

I pushed reasonably hard on the first "interval". It didn't go so well, I felt weak, and I got dropped by the group of my peers. For the other intervals, my plan was to just take it easy and keep working on technique. I definately did not want to take a step backward in terms of health by going too hard for too long. The plan worked OK, except that there were too many people on course. I figured I'd get dropped immediately and would have a clear course to work on. I discovered instead that my 60% effort pace was still faster than most of the beginners' pace. So, I did another 1.5 intervals and then called it a night.

I did the last little bit in the drops. When we were waiting to start the last one, a woman asked me to "feel her brakes". (My wife asked if that was a cycling pickup line? Alas, no, her rear brake was actually a little sticky.) Anyway, it led to a brief discussion on the merits of riding in the drops versus riding on the hoods. I actually like riding in the drops better... I think the bike handles better with the more forward weight distribution and you can get more leverage on the brakes. I just don't do it. The problem is that I'm not used to riding that low, so my back and arms get uncomfortable after a short time. Maybe part of the solution is to raise the bars a little?

Today I feel better still, which is definitely a good thing. I'm going to do some kind of easier ride tonight, try to go hard tomorrow, easy Friday, and then race this weekend. The Thursday ride should give me a pretty good indication of how things will go this weekend.