Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Tuesday, September 07, 2004

Recovery Week

What a weekend...one of labor indeed. Friday I went out to ride a hilly road that must have run near a religious milling establishment at one time near Thomaston that was suggested by a co-worker who also rides. Alan said I'd get a good hill workout and he wasn't kidding. On most of the hills I was able to dance up the inclines but the last one was a long grinder that really made me suffer. I'm not sure how long it was since I was too busy suffering to look at my cyclometer but I sure felt great about finishing it. I ended up doing 50 miles with a climb over King's Mt. on a route I hadn't done before.

Saturday I did my traditional Labor Day Weekend Century. Usually I go to Savannah but with the hurricane and my frustration with how poorly it was orginzed last year I decided to throw together something from some of my flatter training routes. I did the ride in 4:45 which was good considering the constant northeast wind that made parts of the ride pretty tedious. The downside was that I pushed a little too hard and my left hamstring spend the rest of the day trying to cramp up.

Sunday I decided to skip church and worship at Our Lady of the Knobby Tire. I had gotten some pretty disturbing news Saturday afternoon and I really needed a chance to reflect. The three hour drive up to and back from Carter's Lake provided the time I needed to digest all the ramifications of what I had learned. I road the Carter's Lake course which is te harest race we do all year. I only crashed twice in two laps (way down from 6 in one lap last year) and I figured a lot of things out. My skills are better but the hard work of the weekend really a toll. I was completely toast after two not very fast laps but I got a better sense of the course. Most importantly, I'm going to switch to a 34 pie-plate on the back of The Man O' War for the race. The 32 big cog is great for Dauset but not too good for Carter's Lake.

Monday was housework day while we waited for Frances to get here. The weather slowly deterioraited over the course of the day from windy and drizzly to really windy and heavy rain later on. The heaviest winds hit at abou 3 am and woke us both up. I don't think either of us slept really well all night. Fortunately, we only had one leak we had to deal with for the most part.

Today is a soggy back-to-work day but at least it's lab day so I don't have to be really sharp. Hopefully, I'll get some good sleep tonight and I'll feel better tomorrow.

Thanks for reading.

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