Back in the saddle again after a few days of rest since I felt a little tired last week as a result of the brevet and a cold. At least I think it was a cold. I had a scratchy throat for about a week and a half, maybe two? Anyway, my two rides this week have been plagued by headwinds and today I had a heavy laptop and humidity to deal with which dropped my average speed way down. Pros- I got a longer workout in with a moderately high intensity Cons- took forever to get to work and it was pretty hot.
Anyway, enough of that dribble. Heres my ideas for the future. Saturday I am watching the kids since I owe D'Net some free time since she has been putting up with all my Cochise training nonsense. All is lost? That's what I thought too until I realized we had that holiday no one really understands why it's there but everyone loves. Labor Day. Yep, no promises for hanging around on Labor Day! So I had an idea I might go from Mesa to Christmas and back. Sounded cool but I think the 10% grades are a little too much on those long rides and do more harm than good I think seeing as I won't see much of that on the Cochise route. So, I get the awesome idea to go from Mesa to Payson, out Houston Mesa Road to the rim and back (admittedly it does have a short section of 11% by the turnaround but it's really short unlike the 1.5 miles of 10%+ out of Kelvin) . It comes out to 170 miles and around 10,000 feet of climbing.
My quandary is this dear friends. If I do 170 on Monday, a 60-70ish mile ride the Saturday after that, and 200 miles the Saturday after that , accompanied by my stalwart, clever, and ever vigilant crew chief Bruce, is that overdoing it? That gives me 3+ weeks to taper down a bit before Cochise. I figure if I have the time and energy it can't hurt as long as I keep the intensity up.
So what do ya all think? Am I nuts? Got any better ideas?
1 comment:
Paul,
I think you're in good shape for the 252 and I'm betting you will thunder up there in the front pack. I would say take it a bit easy--on the 200 mile that we do here in a few weeks, I'll be your crew, and you can get a sense of how that will work. In other words, being light on the bike--things stripped down, and me handing off food and drink as you need it. This means you can ride a bit faster, but rest stops may be only a few minutes at best--we'll see how that plays out. Just don't over-train.
Save some pain for the race, mon vieux! Cheers! Bruce
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