The right time

T minus 1 to ride day. Nutrition has been purchased, bike is clean, lights are charged, once I have pumped up the tyres and filled the water bottles we will be all ready to go.

I had a pretty tough session this morning and the plan was to also train this afternoon, but given the long ride tomorrow I decided to err on the side of caution and give myself a rest this afternoon. Sometimes taking the easy option is the wiser course of action.

I use TrainingPeaks to help me track my sessions, fitness, fatigue etc and at the moment TrainingPeaks is telling me that I am a little fatigued. To be honest I probably didn't need the software to tell me that, but it is interesting to have it concur with what I am feeling. At the moment it just feels like the edge is missing a little. The last two weeks of training have been pretty solid and so the fatigue I am feeling at the moment is just cumulative from that. The last two weeks have also seen a good improvement in fitness, which is what I am going for, so the fatigue hasn't been for nought. However, tired is tired, no matter how you slice it and so I thought I better make allowance for it.

Given the cumulative fatigue I thought that going for a run and making the fatigue worse probably wasn't the smartest idea. As I have said previously, I am hopeful that we will get through the ride tomorrow without too much blood, sweat and tears, but it is a bit of an unknown, so it can't hurt to err on the conservative side. The ride will be a long day out without going in with already tired legs.

When it comes to training it is very tempting to think that the best thing is just to keep flogging yourself, day in and day out. Certainly there are times for that sort of an approach, but at other times you need to listen to your body and rest up when you need it. The rest might be because you have a race coming, or because you are getting ill, or it may simply be because you have been training hard and are tired, whatever the reason it is important to understand that sometimes taking it easy is not a crime. In fact sometimes it is exactly what you need.

So it was tonight, and I suspect that is how it will be tomorrow.

Nearly time to ride.