I've been taking the recovery slowly. After failing the "readiness test" of back-to-back "long" rides on the first two days of the month, I took two days off, did a couple of short rides (12 and 21 miles) then took another three days off. I then rode the exact same 26 mile ride yesterday and today.
For those who don't use Strava, when you upload a ride it gives a "relative effort" score that compares that ride to your other more recent rides. This is a number that as nearly as I can tell ranges from one to three digits and the higher the number, the harder this ride was relative to your other recent rides. If you click on the number, it shows a line graph that plots the relative effort score for the last week. It also gives some kind of "encouraging" phrase. For the past couple of weeks mine has been "great job managing your effort".
I've got an algorithm throwing shade.
The good news is that the soleus/calf/achilles feels pretty good. I've not done anything remotely near a hard effort, my focus now is to try and increase the distance and see how it responds. I'm set to do my loop around Fredericksburg tomorrow with Rob W. Hopefully there won't be any setbacks.
I sure would like to get back to writing more about riding than not riding!
I'm still hoping that I can do the HCR 1000K in early April. I've never been a big believer that I need to do mega-miles before doing a long ride but I'll be pushing the "residual fitness" concept to the breaking point. I'm hoping to be able to do a few 75-100 miles in the three weeks between now and then and if I'm able to do that I'll consider myself more or less good to go.
Stay tuned!
