Personal bests and dead legs

What a week of training strangeness. Last Saturday I was exhausted. That I wanna take a nap all day tired. Then Sunday's 5k, Monday OWWWW, Tuesday was Cedar Point, Wednesday was a downpour and I renig on plans to ride with Brooke. So I eat dinner, skip out on riding with Jack Sutte and then finally I head out on the cross bike minutes after chowing down and spin EASY for 45 minutes solo.

In a nutshell what I am trying to say is I havent ridden my bike (in anger) since last Thursday at Lorain Speedway. Is that significant? Well I didnt think so, but when I headed out with the Square Wheels ride last night I had full plans to socialize, enjoy the company of other cycling fanatics and then drill every hill at race pace.

The first hill is Sherman and as I drill it off of Chagrin River rd. I feel good, but as soon as I hit the steep second pitch my legs stall out. Apparently there is the difference of being rested and being flat. I was quite amazed at just how flat I was and hoped that my legs wold come around. In retrospect what was I thinking hammering on 6 days off the bike?? Have I learned nothing?

I did feel better and better with every hill attacked that evening and power numbers showed that I wasnt too far off, but I definitely was missing that snap and power to attack and accelerate up the climbs. Lesson learned. I got 3 hours and over 50 miles in with some great intensity. I was very sore as I headed off to dreamland that night. IN fact it was hard to fall asleep as my legs kept bitching about how they felt.

So today I make plans to head out with Brooke again and this time gorgeous weather awaits us. I have no plan, but she has plans for 8 one minute max efforts tossed into a 3 hour ride on flatter roads out in Auburn and surrounding areas. We even made a stop at our usual Burton watering hole.

My goal is to hit the 1 minute max efforts harder than I ever have as I have been quite sure I have not been maximizing these short efforts. It goes like this, Ive got 8 to do, so let me save a little each time to go as hard on the 8th as the first. Wrong!!

Last week on the Spin hilly hammerfest using Tibbets I reset a lot of personal best power numbers. I wanted to better the 1 minute number tonight, but on a more traditional course. Early in 2007 I set a PB of 515 watts for one minute (not trying), but knew I could go higher. last week I hit 535 and today with Brooke as motivation I went 550 and 553 watts on the two best and over 500 on the rest.

I went so hard on the intervals that 6,7 were extremely hard. It was like a switch was turned off at 25 to 30 seconds and the legs just wouldnt go anymore. We didnt do an 8th because we both knew our power was gone. And Brooke smoked me up a hilly sprint on #7 and when she saw me start to fade she really put the hammer down. Nice job Brooke.

And we also rode for 4.5 hours!! Thats got to be a pro training thing to do 4.5 hours of riding and toss in the efforts along the way. So once again I am exhausted, but glad to see some improvement in those short term power numbers. Good to know all the training pays off.