Short Post this time

Yeah I know – really creative title, eh?! But not too much news to report on this end. I pretty much took last week off to try to get rid of this cold. I’ve got issues when a cold moves into my sinuses – for some reason it’ll stick around a lot longer as I tend to get sinus infections pretty easily (right - I’m sure you need to know that).

So last Satuday I went for a pretty easy spin with Wilco in the morning for 2.5 hours which felt OK, but not great. I was really drained afterwords, and a siesta would have been ideal! But my friend Lalo (see the sidebar for his website) and his girlfriend Sasha were having an open day at their atelier in Arnhem, so that afternoon was spend up there checking out their artwork and visuals – some pretty cool stuff. Lalo’s website is really impressive too (I find the organization a bit confusing, but still a neat site).

Then Sunday I decided I’d better not do any intensity and just get some long km’s into my legs, so I joined the Sunday jam group (same as the Tuesday group, only they go a lot longer and a lot slower on Sundays!). We did about 3 hours together and then I was back home, but I still felt really good and I knew I wanted/needed more km’s in my legs, so I grabbed my iPod and some more food and went for another 2.5 hrs solo, which was great. I was toast when I was done, but I’d ridden about 175km and spend a lot of hours in the saddle, which is what I needed for this week!

And most importantly – I tried 2 small efforts with the Wedrenners (not more than 5 minutes total) and my HR was able to get up and my legs felt pretty good. That’s a HUGE change from my last few rides when I couldn’t put anything together. That sickness was really weird – I’ve never felt that drained on the bike before.

So Monday was a rest day, then last night I joined the Wedrenners for the Tuesday jam session. I wanted to see how my body was doing with efforts – hills and pulls at the front. It’s been a while (3 weeks?!) since I’ve felt good and had a good body feeling while riding, so I really wanted to see how it would feel. I played it safe for the first ½ of the ride and just got warmed up really well. Then I hit it a few times on the last 2 climbs and I was really happy with the results. I got my HR up to 187 (I haven’t seen it that high since cyclocross last season!) and everything felt pretty good: my legs were spinning well, my lungs were doing great, and I felt pretty solid. My recovery wasn’t so great after the efforts though, so I took another 45 minute spin after the ride to clean out my legs and get some food in me.

Then last night I slept well but still woke up tired – I still feel this cold in my sinuses, but what can ya do!

Today is a big day – 185km race this afternoon. It starts at 16:30 and ends at 20:45 – luckily it’s light here until about 22:15!!! But I’m not setting huge goals for this one. I’ve felt so crappy and things haven’t been going my way over the past 4-6 weeks, which has been really playing with my head. So I’m just going to try to sit in and finish the race with the main group and get more experience and practice riding in the peloton. I’m not going to worry about breaks and the like – I also don’t think I have the fitness to worry about that stuff right now.

This is also in prep for this weekend – I’m registered to do the Paris-Roubaix cyclo-tour. 259km with 52km’s of them on pave (cobblestones). Check out the course at http://www.letour.fr/2006/PRX/LIVE/us/100/carte.html

This should be an interesting week! Not sure how I’ll do since I haven’t built into this well (ok, I haven’t built into this at all!), but I’m setting low expectations. That’s my new motto :o)