Recovery rides

Rode 70 miles yesterday in Katy. Headwind was horrid going on the 70 loop averaging 14mph one way, but a nice 24-25 on the way back w/ the tailwind. It was fun heading to the 3rd rest stop because a lot of people were heading there so I got a good gauge for my speed and endurance. I even caught up w/ some pacelines to avoid all the wind. One of them appeared to be a group of friends, some of which included members from the UH cycling team. They had some sweet bikes and I don't think they really appreciated me in their paceline but it helped my confidence I could hang w/ them at 24-25 mph.

Of course over 4 hours on the bike was tough on my body. Lower back was aching, hamstring cramped 65 miles in, lateral knee pain brought back bad memories of my ITB flare.. so I went home carefully, ate some good meals the rest of the day and took it easy. Dodger slipped out when I opened the door so chasing him 2 blocks down to get him back was a nice surprise.

I got a full 9 hours of sleep but my body was screaming when I woke up. So I got some chow and headed to the gym to yes, cycle. I did some spinning for about 30 minutes at low resistance to get the blood flowing to the muscles and did some stretching for another 20. Then I sat in the dry sauna for another 30. It's amazing was a recovery ride can do.. a few hours later I feel no more soreness in my legs. From my limited understanding of biology, recovery rides get the blood flowing back to the legs to deliver nutrients and flush out lactic acid. I sat in the sauna because after all the stretching the heat helps me feel more loose. The initial instinct with people who do long rides is to rewards themselves w/ a lot of food (generally junk), veg and do nothing the next day... but a recovery ride is the key in my book combined with a good diet. The food you eat directly after a ride is what replaces your glycogen stores and is ultimately delivered to your aching muscles.. so quality carbs (to restore glycogen) and protein (help muscle repair) are pretty important.

More on my recent nutrition in another post.