The Black Hills course seemed great for me on paper- 1 short hill, some nice loopy curves and another hill on the back that was completely covered from the win. I had planned for this race all season hoping that I could manage to capitalize on the fact that it was still March and maybe accumulate some points somehow, but the day had different plans for me.
My training leading up to the race was spot on. With the help of a few local coaches I had done everything I could with a powermeter, I was feeling great and riding well on group rides, and felt pretty well-rested. I felt extremely tired the day before the race, but thought nothing of it. For some reason I couldn't sleep that night. I never get nervous about races, but I often overthink being able to fall asleep and it builds upon itself the longer I stay awake. I got maybe an hour in between 4 and 5 AM and just decided that if I wasn't going to sleep I should just wake up and make a good breakfast and hang out a bit.
I compensated with the lack of sleep with 5 shots of espresso and thought that I felt great and energetic, however, that would soon change the second I started warming up. I was convinced that my Quarq wasn't calibrating correctly because 240 watts shouldn't feel as draining as it did. I rolled to the line after a 30 minute warm up feeling like I was simply unable to pedal. The gun went off and I knew I was done for after the first lap; the energy just wasn't there. It wasn't that it felt hard, but it just felt like I wasn't able to turn the pedals. I stayed with the front group after the race splintered, but got caught off the back with 3 to go and just rode the rest of the race solo. At least I had the 3/4 to compensate with right?
I warmed up for about 45 minutes before the 3/4 and ate a bit, convinced that my lack of energy was the result of my attempts to lose weight. I felt better than the first race and missed my pedal 3 times, which put me close to the back of the group. I moved up to the front by the second lap and stayed there for a few. I somehow got caught slightly off the front with a few other riders, non of whom were interested in staying there. After pulling the field for a lap I dropped back into the group, where I was reabsorbed. I was gapped slightly on the 90 degree left on the back side of the course and never pulled back on. My race was over a lap later and I almost collapsed in the car.
Pissed that my races went poorly I was convinced that I was overtraining and just didn't sleep well, however, I would soon find that things were much more serious. I started having cold sweats that night and I was completely unable to eat anything. I woke up feeling beat to shit, but decided to go on a nice and easy recovery/endurance ride with Brother Billionaire and still felt back. I woke up the next day with a full blown flu and could barely move out of bed. I stayed off the bike for the next 7 days, with an easy 1 day ride to work that just made the sickness even worse. I had quite a bit of chest congestion, which I would later find out was due to my lungs being partially filled with residual fluid from the flu. The next week after the flu (which included our team camp) was severely hampered by the fact that I was coughing up hard yellow stuff every time my heart rate went over 100bpm. Its likely that I had the flu the night before Black Hills and doing both races on 1 hour of sleep probably dominated my immune system and made things even worse. My obsession with a stupid early season race ended up costing me two weeks of decent training and set me back quite a bit. Lesson learned, but not the easy way.
No comments:
Post a Comment