Midweek fatigue - makes me ramble on and on...

Ahh...Wednesday. I've been trying to catch up on all the blog communiques about the San Francisco Pride weekend. It sounds like it was a lot of fun and included a lot of house parties amongst the blogger group. It also sounds like everyone was impressed with everyone else! I guess it takes a particular type of person to keep a blog running, and more importantly, interesting and relevant.

Which makes me think about my own blog. I haven't really had much time or motivation to post anything too exciting as of late. All I've been doing is racing on weekends, training and racing during the week, and attempting to do some work and Synergy/CBTL administration on the side (yes, I do still work on occasion...).

I'm very happy that the Synergy team represented so well at the track race on the weekend. We were marvelling at how the expertise in different events seems to be spread out amongst team members this year as opposed to having one or two superstars as in years past - especially for the 1/2 and 3 Men's categories. Felix is the sprinter extraordinaire followed closely by Mike, Craig D excels in a more generalist (and smart strategy) approach, Devon is the time trialist, Frank is the kilo expert, Craig and cp are the strategy and support men, BK is the climber, I guess I'm left as the pursuiter and Cyrus is the endurance freak. As a team, we rock, but I wasn't too impressed with my individual results this past weekend. I think there was a combination of several factors that led to a less-than-stellar showing in the GC - fatigue, lack of my showcase events, and changes to my training routines.

I've started running again. I'm trying to maintain/lose some more weight before Montreal and have always found running to be the most effective way to do this. The past few weeks, I've probably been putting in 40-50km per week on top of the cycling training and racing. My weight in the off-season was fluctuating between 182-187 lbs. As of my CP-1 test several weeks ago it was down to 178, but at weigh-in before my VO2 Max test yesterday, it was back up to 182. I'd like to be at 175 as a reasonable goal, maybe even less. I'm not sure whether I've made any progress or not. I'm not sure with my physiology whether 170 would even be attainable. I've found the biggest impact of running again has been fatigue on my legs.

I went into the track race tired on Saturday and didn't really recover any more for Sunday. I think I'm going to be shuffling around my training schedule again to facilitate rest and recovery. I'm convinced that I should be still attempting to do maintenance weight workouts during the week - upper body on Mondays, lower body on Wednesdays. I might still try and slip in a run on Mondays, but I've found that it really knocks me out for the Crit series on Tuesdays. The same goes for runs on Wednesdays kicking my ass for track racing on Thursdays. I have no problems with taking Fridays off, especially before race weekends!

I haven't been sleeping well lately either. Not sure why. I've been waking up multiple times through the night which I normally don't do. And of course, lately it's been so hot in the evenings, it's hard to sleep anyways. I really have to start making a conscious effort to get more rest.

This all culminated in a poor VO2 Max test yesterday. I was still pushing 480 watts despite a lower cadence and way lower VO2 result. The test I did in December yielded a 67.9 ml/kg/min, but the test yesterday was 10 points lower, around 57. I was pretty upset about that, but considering how tired I was yesterday I wasn't really surprised. I had hoped to get the wattage above 500, and it probably would have happened had I been fresh.

I had planned to race at the Crits last night. After the test I went to MEC to find some 15mm cone wrenches for my track axle. They were sold out and I was kind of pissed and my legs were fried so I headed down to Swan's instead and proceeded to drink beer and eat with Joe, Kirsten and Jason. I swear I'll be back at the Crits next week....

I think I might head to the movies tonight with BK. We both want to see "An Inconvenient Truth" so tonight might be the best night to do so. If that doesn't work out I'll probably just go for a recovery ride or something. Joe is working double shifts all week and weekend so I probably won't get to see much of him until Monday.

The CBTL six-day series pizza and prize night is tomorrow at the velodrome. The last three out of four Thursday race nights have been rained out, so they're finally going to get back on track (pun intended) tomorrow night. I'm in the money again! First place in the A group for the first series. 94 points so far. Hopefully I can continue this at least for the second series. I'm going to be out of town for most of the third one, so I have to make every race count!

We're off to Edmonton on Friday for the Canada Day Crit and the Trofeo Leva Crit on Saturday and Sunday. Not a huge Synergy cohort going - cp, Felix, Natasha, Steph, Craig G. and myself - but it will be fun nonetheless and the weather's supposed to be optimal for racing. Plus I love the CDC course around the Legislative Buildings! I've done that course so many times, you'd almost think I lived in Edmonton or something.

We'll be back on Sunday - we're planning on going to Sunday Skool at the Hi-Fi Club Sunday night for Natasha's b-day. Yay for long weekends! It should be a lot of fun. And hopefully a restorative few days for mind, body and soul.

Further to that, I've just decided - I'm taking Friday off as a flex day. My cousin-in-law Dave and his son Brock are in Calgary for a hockey tournament this weekend, so I've agreed to meet up with them on Thursday night. Afterwards, I can go and drink at Swan's without having to get up early on Friday. Sweet.