Back at it...

How did the week of "rest" and "recovery" go?   

Well, knowing that I would be kid-less on the closing weekend of the rest period, I decided to start resting a day early.  The Sunday heading into rest, I did an easy hike with my daughter and followed that up with some yoga.  I spend the entire week doing lots and lots of yoga and stretching, but with balmy weather all week, I did sneak in a short easy mountain bike ride with one of my favorite groups of riders/pizza & beer consumers.  That ride was tough for me because I knew I had to hold back.  Not only was I supposed to be resting and letting my body recover, but I was also trying to let my heart rest.  I don't imagine that it's very good to drive your heart rate up to max capacity on a regular basis without giving it a vacation once in a while.  

I have to say, I did better than I thought I would this week.  I probably could have done better, but I'm a newbie at forcing myself to rest.  Usually when rest happens, it's due to some sort of life complications getting in the way... like having to work or write a paper.  These things aren't exactly restful either.  So, I started a day early, but I ended two days early.  I got back on the bike on Saturday, mostly because I didn't want to miss out on a gorgeous weekend at the beginning of February, and partly because I knew that the following weekend I'd have my daughter.  

I had all intentions of doing a shorter, tempo ride on Saturday.  It ended up being longer than I'd planned, but the tempo was killer.  I was basically playing "chase" with some of my buddies, and they were definitely not going easy on me... although, maybe they were, and I'm just not that fast.  (heehee).  The plan for Sunday was a long tough ride and concentrating on some long stretches with some high tension.  We were out for about 3.5 hours in some of the bumpiest, leg-sucking terrain.  

I figured I'd have trouble walking for a couple days, but the only symptom was some fatigue, so I think the yoga-rest combo last week paid off.  I recovered yesterday with more rest, and felt less than fresh when I got on the trainer this morning, but luckily, I was able to muster up a little bit of focus that carried me through two 30-minute HIT (high intensity training) sessions.  phew!  Those ones were tough.  It's a good thing nobody's around when I'm doing those, because I typically swear a whole lot and sweat profusely.  I get quite gross.