Riding a wave

A few days after a rest week, is the best time to ride. My legs feel pretty good and are finally coming back after the staleness of the MSP. The next weeks are final transition into the in season type of stuff.

This training is hard mentally because so much of it is performed in a fatigued state. Not so much that you get injured or over trained, but enough to mess with your head. The basis for all rides becomes those one or two stellar rides that you have when you are fresh. So you think you suck during the rest of the time even though your are working towards the dream. It's hard but it is efficient training, and works.

Today was a good day, as was this weekend. Long rides at Douthat state park. Man there is some steep climbing there. I am going to do simulations on a trail here called Dodger. Everyone considers it a downhill only trail. Climbing it is an excercise in futility. Which makes it good training.

Pretty soon I'll be gearing up for race simulations. Given family time, it is really hard to get out for lots of races. It just takes too much prep and travel time, and shoots an entire weekend. So I only do it a few times a year. But it is so hard to push yourself as hard in training.

My goal is to sort of switch around how I've mentally approached training and racing. Training races have been performed at a good solid output of effort. Hard but not cramp out eyes bugging out sort of thing. I've been so jacked up at races that I ride into the ground and cramp out. I am hoping to try and do my race sims with the same lack of restraint as I used to race, and hope to race with a more conservative pacing that gets me to the finish faster.

We'll see. This is what sets good riders apart. They can put themselves into the hurt locker at will.