Week #4: I Wake Up Exhausted

It seems that I finally exorcised the 12-day cold, but my body still isn't really doing what I want it to. After finally going two nights in a row without being kept awake by coughing, I once again embarked on an attempt to reestablish a consistent, sustainable training plan on Wednesday.

I went to the gym and kept it extra short and light to make sure that I wouldn't have any excessive soreness, and that seemed to work out pretty well. On Thursday we went on my first road ride since arriving in State College, as I wanted to get some pedaling in without the trouble of loading bikes or putting too much rocky/climby strain on my body. Friday was back in the gym, once again keeping it light and easy.

First Road Ride in Two Months.

So one would think that even if I weren't all taper-y fresh for the weekend's riding that I would still be able to do what I needed to do without excess fatigue. I mean, I did everything I could to reestablish the habit of daily post-work training (a big mental challenge that I need to overcome) without overdoing it. Unfortunately, I woke up Saturday morning feeling exhausted and generally terrible, which may or may not be due to staying up "past my bedtime" to show support for the Chicago Blackhawks, or at least to show support for my resident Blackhawks fan.

Regardless, it was another day where I just wanted to go back to sleep after breakfast and hitting the farmer's market, but I knew that I needed to get a long mountain bike ride in, so we packed up the bikes and I hoped my legs would come around. They didn't. Pretty much every pedal stroke of the four mile gravel climb to the first singletrack descent was a test in willpower to keep going. Even when we hit the descent, I felt uncoordinated and couldn't ride very fast. We ended up cutting the planned ride short and hoping to complete the parts we skipped on Sunday.

Sunday was not any better. I still felt terrible but now with aching quads from the previous days' climbing. I still stubbornly headed out to Tussey, even though I knew something was wrong when I didn't even have the energy to make conversation on the drive out. After a mile or so of climbing while once again having to will every single pedal stroke, I called it a day and felt like a jerk for dragging Frank through the whole dressing/packing/driving ordeal for a two-mile ride.

I also watched Frank play #sportswithballs on Sunday. He likes doing that sometimes.

So I ended the week pretty frustrated that my fitness isn't coming around the way I had hoped, but I'm not sure what to do about it. Part of me wonders if I should just stop trying with the weight training for a while, and focus on riding only. The other part tells me to stay the course with daily, if minimal, training until things start to improve. I think this would result in my riding taking a longer time to stop sucking, but that I might be better off for it by the time the summer is over. With less than two weeks left until the Trailmix, I'm not sure that there's a lot that I can do to make it not suck, which is disappointing. Perhaps I just need to accept that my first race on the #eastcoastrocks may turn into a pathetic DFL, pity-clapping, bad kind of death march akin to my endurance days of yore, but also know that it will be a good investment toward some better performances in the fall.