Feeling bad riding good

I took an extra day of recovery yesterday in order to be able to complete two days of hard rides before leaving for a business trip.

My legs still feel slow. The image that comes to mind is riding through water or mud. Or riding with too low tire pressure.

It is to be expected coming into the tail end of a 3 week block. This morning early I went on the mountain bike. This was to be my first run up Old Farm this year with time as the main goal.

My previous PR was 16:21 timed from this little creek. It was an archaic place to start the clock, so I've move the starting point to a more suitable location, the Kiosk at the bottom of the trail which is about 45seconds-1minute back from this creek.

My goal was 17:20 to match this previous PR. That was set in July. So I'd had several months of good riding beyond the Off-season training. We are at May now and I'm about 1 month behind compared to last year.

I hit the track knowing that the bottom has to be taken slow. Too hard and it's all over. I 'tried' to go slow, the gearing showed I was going slow, but the heartrate, burn, and heavy feeling in the legs indicated I was not.

Took my Ipod today. The music helped the time flow. Just tried to keep it steady. I walked certain sections judiciously. Trying to clean them would take me over the redline too much making me go slower.

17:29

I was pretty stoked considering that I didn't feel like I was riding that well at all. During the previous PR I felt like I was flying. Really staying on top of the gear and just ticking over the cadence.

Plus it is at the end of a 3week block, and it still early in the year. So all those things combined say that I'm doing well. Though I'm still riding in a vacuum. Not done any race or group road hammer fests. It easy to be #1 when riding alone.

My technical skills seemed a little off. Timing just seemed wrong. Though I did ride down this one switchback on Sidewinder for the first time in my life. So that is a +

One more hard day tomorrow, then forced rest.