For starters, here's a few photos taken on a ride from almost 3 weeks ago. The flooding around our area was pretty astonishing.
It's been a little while since the last post so this may be a little long-ish.
The last week has been fairly disappointing from a riding perspective. That is, there has been ZERO riding by yours truly as a result of some sort of respiratory infection that began last Saturday night. I do believe that the stress of that day probably helped the infection take hold as I likely tried to cram too much into one day.
Last Saturday I spent most of the morning disassembling the Fox fork on my mountain bike to replace the seals and give it some fresh oil. Based on several favorable reviews, I decided to install Enduro seals. Let me tell you, their step-by-step guide for taking the fork apart was spectacular. If you've never done this sort of repair before, their guide has great photos and descriptions of exactly what to do. If anything, I'd say they almost break it down too far. That's a good problem. Even with good instructions, I was still a little nervous about getting it all back together successfully so that I could ride at Mohican State Park the following day. (Stress Source #1)
After getting the fork back together, I had a field test on the training schedule. The plan was to get in about a 30-minute warm-up, do my 20-minute time trial, and then spin out the remaining 40-minutes. Well, I felt pretty good during my warm-up and proceeded into the time-trial. About 4-minutes in I hear my HRM beeping that it lost the transmitter signal. I tried moving the transmitter strap a little bit and it got the signal back. Now, my heart rate had dropped and I was hammering trying to get back up to speed. A minute later the signal drops again and never recovered. Since my average HR for the time trial was what I needed, I decided to bag the test for another day and simply rode hard for the remainder of the 20 minutes and then spun out the rest. It was disappointing because I really wanted to see how much my fitness had improved and the first part of the time trial was looking pretty good. The worst part was getting home and checking the battery in the transmitter. It had plenty of juice and so I'm left wondering where in the hell the problem lies. (Stress Source #2)
A sore throat started to kick in as I got my gear together for Sunday and I didn't sleep well at all Saturday night. When the alarm went off at 6:30AM, my throat felt awful and my head was fully plugged. A quick text to let the crew know I wasn't coming then it was back to sleep until around 9 or 9:30.
So, I'm thinking that mental stress plus the physical stress of the hard ride on Saturday joined forces to open the immune system gates. The most difficult thing about training for anything is avoiding over-training. It's amazing how quickly you an get too far in the hole and your body can't keep up. A week off the bike is my punishment for not listening to my body.
Lorena has fortunately managed to avoid contracting whatever has taken up residence in my lungs and sinuses. I'm jealous of her bike commute even though it's relatively short simply because it's an opportunity to get out and pedal. On a positive note, I am on the upswing and should be back in the saddle soon enough.
