A Gentle Recovery Ride

That 200k on Monday hurt me!  I was surprised by the pain I had Monday evening into Tuesday.  My legs ached and I was stiff.

I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised.  As I look at my riding log, I had exactly 5 rides between my 200k in January and this one in February, even though there were 19 days in between the two.  Those 5 rides totaled just over 105 miles.  This is what it feels like to not have sufficient base miles under my belt when doing a 200k!  We can’t let that happen again!

All in all, that meant that yesterday was a no ride day, and today was a gentle recovery ride.  And I actually did it right!

Chris L, Dan & I stuck to the trail and took it easy.  My heart rate average was 116 for the morning, and it was that high only because of the last half of the ride.  My legs were challenged by the < 14 mph average pace on the fixie.  But it was a good morning, and as Dan & Chris kept repeating, we always feel better after a ride.

Recovery rides are as important as those base miles, those intervals, the hill training, the long-distance riding, and the sprints.  Each have their place.

This Ride: 18.3 miles
Month: 252.2 miles
2013: 668.4 miles
Total since 1/1/2010: 20,441.3 miles