Stress

At the moment it looks like 8:30pm and its only 4pm. Skies darkend and my favorite ride of the week looks in peril. Riding hills at race pace and some new sprints on the Wednesday evening course that incldes the 20 degree Tibbets, triple climb up Mulberry and bit of Sherman and two power descents at mega watts at 40+mph!!

I was thinking last week when we rode how much fun it was, but how I needed to lay off the attacks as I had Tour De Frankenmuth in 3 days. So I went with attacks, chased and rotated through in fast pacelines, but didnt attack myself except to sprint.

The idea was to keep a high level of stress in the legs all week (and the previous week) with a short taper and easy rides to get ready for the 77 mile Pro1,2 field. Try to make the race rested, but not flat. In fact anything but flat.

It turns out my prep was about right as I had great legs Saturday. Some luck and some good prep. I think a lot of riders dont put enough thought into how and when they put stress into their training. Another word for stress could be "reaching". The idea is to go hard for an extended period of time (could be days, weeks or months)to bring about an adaptation or a higher level of riding to put it simply.

So this all brings me today. I wont stress if I miss today because even missing a key ride like tonight with its mix of endurance, tempo, LT, AC, max efforts is not a tragedy. I have been keeping the stress in the legs and have more hard workouts planned.

All that happens is I might be a bit faster or stronger for a workout later in the week.

So I guess sometimes if you have a lot of stress in your life (or training program) sometimes it allows you to have a stress free day once in awhile. A lot less in real life sadly.