Lingering leg fatigue from Sunday

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Well today is a glorious sunny day. Great weather this morning after last night’s freaky thunderstorm and torrential rain. Great weather for an outdoor swim… but that’s not on the plan for today. Today calls for a hour cycle followed by a short transition run. Looking forward to that after work. The only minor concern is the residual fatigue from Sunday’s cycle. I’m surprised that the legs are still a little tired – I guess the ride was tougher than I thought. My guess is that due to the number of stops and mini-rest breaks my aerobic system had time to recover from the efforts but the leg muscles didn’t recover. So by the end of the ride my CV system was not fatigued but my legs were. Interesting to consider the difference.

Yesterday’s swim went well even though the arms were still a bit achy from Saturday’s long swim. With the taper beginning these muscle aches will pass fairly quickly now which is great! During the taper I intend to keep an eye on my CTL to ensure that it does not fall too much. My CTL has not been rising for a while, but rather keeping steady, so hopefully the taper won’t let it drop too much. Joe Friel, the guru, has a great blog entry Strong and Weak Form which discusses the art of taping to come into form while keeping an eye on CTL. I hope that my coach’s plan does not taper to fast causing my CTL to drop dramatically… if I start getting concerned I will discuss this with my coach and perhaps increase intensity/volume slightly to keep the CTL decreasing “optimally”. Yes, another plug for the great WKO+ software – it really is this great!

Nineteen days till race day… EEEEK!

Three weeks to go….

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Well three weeks till the big one! I am starting to get things ready and ensuring that I have enough of  everything that will be going with me.

Yesterday I did a 150km cycle – the Ride to the Horns cyclosportive around Aylesbury. Quite a tough course with multiple short sharp climbs. I’m sure I saw the gradient show 18% on my cycle computer a couple of times. The ride was enjoyable but seemed to drag on somewhat. I suspect that this was due to riding in a group, taking too long at the feed stations and most noticeably due to one of my fellow riders getting a puncture that took around 45 minutes to fix. Long story short, we got through three tubes, two CO2 canisters and a new tyre! I would recommend this ride to someone looking to get some hill climbing in. Apparently the route takes in most of the decent climbs in the area. My legs are feeling it today!

The bike went well. New wheels are a treat. The gearing seems to be good, apart from dropping the chain twice while shifting back onto the small chain-ring, so I might have to tweak that. The rear brake still rubs a touch so I may try and tweak that too.

My on going seat post creak seems to be resolved – for the moment at least as I suspect it will return. My Felt B2’s seat post has been creaking for a while. The bike shop thought it was the saddle clamps which got some oil and attention but this failed to remedy the squeak. I then used carbon paste on the post and a drop of oil on the seat post clamp screws which helped for a bit – but the creak returned. I have now put some electrical tape around the lip of the seat post opening on the frame which means that the seat post clamp doesn’t rub on the frame. This seems to have resolved the creak for the moment. I may undo the clamp and see the state of the tape – it’s possible that it will need attention regularly which will be fine if it keeps the squeak at bay!

I managed to get a 3900m swim in on Saturday in the 50m outdoor pool. Lovely and clear water at a decent temperature too. Not a bad swiming venue, if a little bit far to goto regularly.

Anyway a slightly easier week for me this week – Hurray!

Twitter Updates for 2009-06-13

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  • 3900m swim today in 1h27. Slower than I had hoped but pace was fairly consistent. The outside 50m is a great change from the indoor 25m #
  • Am all ready for the Ride to the Horns tomorrow! Hopefully new Hed Jet C2 6s are setup right! Now, what AVG power to aim for… #