I love when the Tour hits Mont Ventoux. As long as I can remember it’s just such an iconic stage. I can remember seeing photos of Eddie powering up it when I was a kid, as well as Lance, and Froome and Contador.
chapeau to Wout van Aert for his victory today.
It’s just a surreal place to ride a bike, and it’s been decisive so many times. It’s a bucket list ride for me, even if I only survive it.
33.
What else is there to say?
I am in need of a reset as to my training methodology. A reset taking into count my kind of new reality. The ‘ol leg is telling me we may never be the same again. I do believe that while it may not be the same, it will be as good or better in a different way. The problem statement here, which is pretty obvious I suppose is simply put, “how do we get there?”.
The answer isnt so obvious, at least not to me. I spend a good bit of time researching and staying abreast of training information online, and with friends in the same or similar boats. Getting professional information has been more challenging in the new COVID-19 world reality.
I went to the PCM last week with complaints about my hip, a new type of pain, more of a burning than a sharper pain as I’d become accustomed to it. The response was to send me for an X-ray (which in their defense is the approved first step per my insurance), though this seems to be in direct contraindication to the description I’ve given. Meh, in the end, its a road right. The PA who did my write up asked if she could touch my hip before I left, and she immediately stated “it’s hot”. I said that while I appreciated it, I thought we should keep things professional (😂) which thankfully she found amusing. That being said, she was right, it was hot to the touch, a good 4 or 5 degrees warmer than the tissue around it. So she did some quick tests and decided that I have a sub dermal infection of sorts, in the soft tissue. Not uncommon in post surgical areas, however it has been quite a while since the last cut. The gist was that removal of tissue creates voids internally that invite infection. Thus, I got the broad spectrum anti biotics that destroy your stomach, and I’m feeling in general like someone is laying on me all the time.
I hope to shed the wet blanket feeling in the next few days and get back on the horse with both feet in the stirrups to follow my analogy further down the road. Today is a ride day, with no real goal other than at least 45 minutes of time spent spinning the pedals. I am likely producing a normalized power of like 150 over these rides which hurts me to say, but it’s the reality. So the loose plan I’m following right now is M-W-F Run/Walk, T-Th-Sa Ride. The weekday rides are 45m and 60m respectively with 90m on Saturday. Monday is a run day, roughly 40 minutes overland, Wednesday is a ruck day, and Friday is an hour of running/walking mix. I’ve been riding the cross bike single-track style during the week to build strength and re-true my bike handling skills, with a nice longer pure road ride on Saturday.
This plan hasn’t changed in a bit, but there have been a bunch of setbacks that I’d like to think I might be passed at this point. I’ve kind of accepted the new slow me, and while I dont like it, I can deal with it. I’m treating it in a sense like I’m a rank beginner. A rank beginner with some pretty nice bikes 😂. By going this way I keep my expectations in check, and in a reasonable zone, but I can also flex to accept improvements.
Time will tell I guess.
I’ve been doing a bunch of reorganizing and such here tonight. This is something I’ve planned for a while, but only just got real about.
I use this blog to post mostly about 2 wheeled things, and Motorsport in general, so I’ve finally cleaned it up to reflect that.
I’m fighting a headache AGAIN today.
Allergies I’m sure, and it’s something I’m really getting tired of. When I travel and I find relief simply by stepping off an airplane in a place that doesn’t have our types of pollen and mold I’m reminded of a question I’ve asked myself many times recently, “why the hell do I still live in Texas?”. The answers are there of course, family ties, school longevity for the kids, personal relationships, not to mention my employer, but the environment here doesn’t make it easy.
The weather forecast has us at 102 to 105, depending which forecast you believe today, though it’s only 93 as I write this around 1:45, so maybe it won’t soar quite so high. Knock on wood. That’s legit hot, by anyone’s standards, the kind of heat that kills people. I’ve recently begun to think of Texas summers the way my friends in the Dakotas think of winter. We just do things inside during this part of the year. At a minimum I am treating my days off south of the border style where I’m up early, productive til around 2 or 3, then siesta til 5 or 6 when the temp comes back down a bit. It’s a good time to get reading or writing done, maybe a few projects inside that need tied up.
They say this wave will last around 4 days and drop back down to the upper 90s next week, and if that’s true it will feel like fall here. Yesterday while Jackson and I were working on bikes we both got a little behind the hydration and core temp,curves, despite having a shade awning up, and a strong fan blowing misted air at us. We kept our ice water at our sides and refilled often, and we didn’t do more than 40 minutes outside at a time without 15 or 20 inside to cool off, but he still ended up dehydrated last night, crashing early, and I was clearly feeling the impact as well.
This is the second time I’ve done this workout, the first time I skipped the coaching notes and did it all at 90+ rpm. Tonight I listened to ol Chad and did it at 75 with the standing drills. It was harder for sure, but still no where near as hard as some of the other SSB workouts. Im thankful for that tonight though, I’m just cleared out from being sick and this was a very good settle back into routine.
I rocked a little metal while I rode tonight.
I have to say that I feel kinda bad about wearing my “Belgian the fuck up”socks for an indoor ride, but it is winter in Texas, so suck it. I also bought a heater for the pain cave. 🙂 It’s about 37 degrees here, which is cold enough to be legit cold, but not enough to make the humidity drop, so it’s spirit crushingly cold. For reals. My buddy from the Canadian Army in Manitoba says the coldest he’s ever been in his life was in Texas.
Carson -3 TrainerRoad
This was a good ride, I can definitely feel my strength coming back on, I have a ramp test scheduled for the 8th and I feel like I’ll go up considerably. I wouldn’t say this workout was easy, but I was never in any type of crisis or duress. Though if done at a lower cadence and doing stomps at the beginning of each interval as Chad suggests, I think it would be considerably more challenging.
I sagged right in the middle again, but I finished pretty strong. At one point I looked up and had a sudden fear that I had a whole other interval to go, but then I realized it was the history file rather than the workout file. I didn’t know if my legs were up to a fourth!
Good solid workout.
