June 18, 2006

Looking Forward, Not Backward

No racing this weekend, at least not for me. I even skipped out on the WORS race that is only 45 minutes from my house since I did come home early from the NORBA's to "rest".
It's strange taking a break. You do different things than you would normally do. I've been working at the shop for half the day and then I coming home and sleeping the afternoon away. I've never slept so much in my life, but that's the point and requirement for recovery. I was even out in the 85 degree sunshine yesterday afternoon helping Jamie paint the sheep fence, getting dehydrated and sunburned, and really not even caring cause I wasn't going to ride or race today anyway so what's the difference? Normally, there would have been no way I'd have been out there without a lawn chair and a big jug water next too me, but not this week.
I've really shut it down this week mentally and sitting outside in the sun on a Saturday afternoon is exactly what that is. The last two months I was really struggling, trying to recover by taking days off, but mentally I was stressing so much about it that I wasn't really resting. When I flew home from NC I really had to just shut it off, and since then it's easy as checkers to skip riding for the last 6 days.
I did manage to get my bikes out of the case and built back up in between fence painting, world cup soccer games, and naps this weekend though. It was pretty tempted to ride too, I had such high hopes for this part of the season and now I'm just sitting around trying to get healthy. That's OK because when I am finally able to ride I'll be fresh and the form and fitness will come back fast. I'm already starting to look at the WORS schedule to see if I'll be able to get in 8 races for the overall and maybe then I can have a shot at taking another one of those. If I can get healthy before July I should be able to use some Superweek races to help the racing form come back and get the legspeed up for those triple crown races in August and September and then cross season will be full on and I should be riding some good fitness by then.
I just have to get healthy first. I'm done with antibiotics and it seems like I am doing better. No more green stuff in my nose and I'm not coughing all night like I was in NC so that's good. Tomorrow will be day number 7 off the bike and I might try some easy rides during the week to see how my body responds. It seems like my nose is always plugged sitting around, but when I was riding is was flowing like mad so I'm curious if that is still happening. Allergies are horrible right now around here too and I've been talking with Tom about that, we might try some different things if this doesn't end with the antibiotics.
That's it for me this weekend. Ciao

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

tristan,
are you going to come to superior bike fest in marquette this weekend?

Anonymous said...

Tristan,

Hope you feel better soon - here are few short video clips from NORBA #3 at Mt. Snow, so you can see your teamates suffer in the heat:

http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2105120657

Henry
http://www.imagestation.com/members/henryjjjj

Tristan Schouten said...

It doesn't look like I'll make it to the superior bike fest this year. I would have looked forward to this event if I was able to go but I still would encourage anyone else to go to it. The road races were fun and the mountain bike race was one of the best I've done in the Midwest!
Tristan