Sunday, March 20, 2011

Solid Weekend

Well, the week started off a little rough. I didn't get feeling halfway decent until Wednesday. I did a couple strength workouts later in the week, but I was very conservative with my riding. Just some very short, very easy rides on Wednesday and Thursday.

Yesterday, I hit the dirt roads from Pontiac Lake to Davisburg. Temperatures were in the low 40's, so it was reasonably pleasant. I felt pretty strong early on, but I could tell that I haven't been riding much. My back started getting tired and sore about 2/3rds of the way through, and it was pretty sore by the time I finished. The ride didn't leave me feeling particularly confident about Barry-Roubaix. I came home, stretched and massaged with the foam roller and tennis ball, and my back seemed back to normal.

Today, I did mostly the same route, but I went farther to give an extra half hour of riding. This time, I stretched beforehand, and it seemed to help quite a bit. I could feel my back getting a little tired, but it never got to the point of bothering me. I felt much better for the first half of the ride today than I did yesterday (despite it being significantly colder today!). I started fading a bit after my turnaround point, but it wasn't too bad. I had a headwind coming home, so that was part of it. The wind blowing off the still mostly-frozen Pontiac Lake was really cold!

So, after today, I have some confidence that I should do OK at Barry-Roubaix next week. The extra week of recovering from my cold will probably help me more than anything else.

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