Mansfield -> Now

Just finished up a big week of training, top off with 3hrs at Hardwood Hills yesterday.

After Mansfield my body was pretty beat-up. My lower back was the worst, painful enough to make the rest of my body feel great. A short hike to loosen things up Monday revealed that just about everything would be needing rest.

Lots of time was spent with my body in a horizontal position during the day Tuesday, and if it wasn't for the cancellation of the ZM crit, I would have just done an easy spin - to speed up recovery, but now the SCCC Tuesday night'r was on the schedule. It was cold and rainy, but a decent sized group showed, and we hammered some shortened Niagara classic laps for about an hour. Most people left early, but myself and Dan Dakin toughed it out.

My back was tight, but didn't hurt to much to ride hard.

Wednesday was going to be an easy 2hrs. 170-190 watts average. I started decent, then started to hurt at an easy pace, then I dropped my power to 150, and just kept the cranks turning to get home in 2:15. Bad day, as I expected after digging deep Tuesday without being recovered from Sunday.

Thursday was a lot better, but with a bit of tension still in my back, I decided to scrap my planned intervals, and just ride steady. I felt better and better as I went along, then I saw a bright yellow jersey coming straight at me. It was teammate Alex Schmidt, warming up for some intervals. I turned around and joined him. He had a bunch of 1min efforts to do, and I said I would sit in his draft during them if he didn't mind. Decided to do some 5-10 second sprints around him as he finished the efforts. This was fun, kinda like motor pacing I guess. The only problem was that I would get a big gap after sprinting as he spun it out, then he would start his next go 30 sec later and I would have to surge hard to get back into his draft, where he would be half way through the minute. Still fun, and a great way to keep each other motivated.

My sprints were not my best, but the 12 I did were all over 1200 watts, with my best one being the 12th, hitting 1426. Not to bad.

Friday turned out to be a great 4hr ride with Justin. Saw Port Colbourne, and Port Dalhousie in the same day, and it was not the lake to lake. Nice weather again, and I felt stronger than I expected to.

Saturday I met up with Justin again, to do laps of the classic. Rode laps steady, and pinned it up the hill each time. Had 5 solid climbs up the Eff, feeling great each time, puttin down over 500 watts on the way up.

Yesterday was a road trip to Hardwood, to get a little time on some singletrack. Trails around here are still sloppy, so I felt the trip was necessary, also the trails there are soo much fun. Rode every trail, except Radical which was closed due to a bunch of down trees. Did cranked and fun again to get 3hrs in. Great day on the bike, and I felt like I shed most of the rust from my technical skills.

Feeling confident for Woodnewton this weekend. Going to have a restful week to prepare for it, and hopefully be in or close to the top 10.

Now time to watch the Giro!!! The universal sports coverage seems totally worth the 20bucks, thanks Dad!