I’ve almost completed another rest week. Yes, rest weeks don’t just pass by – I actually complete them. When you’re like me, and want to be riding all of the time, forcing yourself to take it easy, have days off and keep your heart rate down is a serious challenge!
I’ve still been going to Yoga, and I’ve had regular, relaxed paced rides throughout the week. This makes it hard to gauge how I’m going, but this morning’s bunch ride (around 80-90km) did give me some good indications.
Setting off faster than usual, the pace mostly remained pretty high, but I stayed conservative, either dropping the pace a little when I was on the front, or pulling very short turns. However, along a few stretches of road, I found myself needing to put in something of an effort to stay in contact with the bunch. And it felt easy. I only pulled a short turn on Tiger Brennan Drive, but was able to comfortably ramp it up from the mid-40s to well over 50km/h. I decided not to stay on the front at that pace for very long, but it was a hard decision when I was feeling so fresh after a week off. And I’m sure it was for the best – learning when to not do any work is another important aspect of racing, and it is crucial to my training as well.
Matt has set out an exceptionally hard week to go into as well. Heavier on kilometres than previous weeks, although perhaps well below what I’d regularly knock out in Melbourne, the intensity is likely to leave me feeling very fatigued. It’ll really shake up the regime and I’m really looking forward to trying to rip my own legs off.