1st Workout after IMWI and other stuff...

Well, I went out and rode with the Tuesday Night Road Ride group tonight.  These guys are absolute animals.  Led by a man I can only describe as a General Webb, the ride focuses on group riding skills, pacelines, and to top it all off, some fast finishing sprints (30+ mph!!!!).  I rode with these guys last summer and posted some serious bike splits at all my races back then.  This summer, I didn't get to ride with them as I've been down in IN on my final co-op rotation.  Regardless, I'm back in mid-Michigan, recovered from IMWI, and felt ready to shred some legs out on the road tonight.

Tonight was a sufferfest.  I was worried as my first pull at the front of the group was up a slight hill.  As it turns out, I have not forced my cardiovascular system to do any serious work in 9 days, so my lungs screamed at me a little bit. Well, SHUT UP LUNGS! (paraphrasing Jens Voigt).  Once the blood got flowing, I continued to feel better as the ride went on.  My Garmin 305 had the distance at 39.6mi in 1:48:26, which for those not willing to do the math is an average of 21.7mph.

Since these fine gentleman love sprinting so much and by no means am I a sprinter, I let them take the glory and I Mark Renshaw the shit out of those sprints (not headbutt style, leadout style).

I get in an excellent interval of 1-2 minutes where I'm holding 27-29mph.  If I had Watts on the road, I'm sure it would be in the 375W range.  Then, these glory-seeking men sprint past me to battle it out for the win.  Take your Tuesday Night Glory and thanks for making my 40k TT faster!

In other training news, my IT band is finally starting to feel better after the unfortunate "surprise" it gave me half-way through the marathon at IMWI.  Lots of foam rolling and stretching seems to be the only cure.  I'll try to get out and run this week, hopefully it doesn't hurt too bad.

In completely non-training news, I have been on this health-kick lately in an attempt to drop some weight.  Not that I really think I need to drop weight, I figured I should just have something else occupy my time since I'm not training for IMWI (compulsive much?)  I have been replacing processed carbs with wholesome, natural carbs (veggies, fruit, beans, etc.).  That means no pastas, cereals, tortillas, etc.  My carbohydrates have been coming primarily from black beans and veggies.  The most noticeable change is the switch from a sandwich and crackers/pretzels for lunch to a big salad (like, 3 quart sized bowl big).  I have no real basis for making this change, I just figured it wouldn't be a bad replacement.  Protein is coming from eggs, fish, beans, and nuts.  We'll see what happens after a few weeks of this.  I do still get a healthy quantity of traditional carbs post-workout when I have some sort of brown-rice veggie stirfry and a recovery drink.  Main focus is to remove pastas, breads, and cereals.

Off to recover with a full night's sleep.  Cya later.