What would Jens do?
Grateful to my employer for the Monday holiday, I decided to work a couple 14 hour days to make up for the work I missed Monday.
Well, I didn't exactly decide to do that. I was sort of forced into it. But let's be charitable to me here, okay?
Monday was a rest day, off the bike. Tuesday I hit the trainer for 90 minutes of zone two. That was interesting considering I got home at 9:30. So I was into bed around midnight and up around 4:45 the next morning since I have an hour commute each morning, and when you're cramming in 14 hours, it helps to start the day so that you will finish your 14 before midnight. (Let no man say life in D.C. is not glamorous and fun.)
I got home last night, tucked my kid into bed, and then hung out with three buddies talking sports and big screen TVs for an hour.
Okay, fine, they weren't buddies. They were the Verizon cable repair guys.
Anyhow they finished up at about 9:30.
So I had a tough choice: hit the trainer for 90 minutes and take my exhausted ass to bed somewhere just short of midnight (can't forget to shower, or take out the trash...)
Or should I just go to be early, get a good night's sleep, and make sure to hit my workout today, Thursday?
There's only one way to answer training and racing questions. It's to ask yourself,
WWJD? What would Jens do?
The answer, of course, is simple. Jens would quit his puny lawyer job, start working out full time, get signed to a top UCI ProTour team, become a super domestique, win some races, rip the legs off the peloton at will, and become a globally beloved figure.
Unfortunately, I'm not Jens Voigt. So I went to bed and got a good night's sleep. I even slept a little late this morning.
In spite of the fact that there is some evidence Jens might have decided this question the same way, given the time of night, I have a sneaking suspicion it's not what Jens would have done.
Oh well.
4 comments:
very smart. For those of us who aren't Jens, the fastest way to screw up your spring campaign isn't to miss one or two 90 minute zone 2 rides, it's to get sick and be useless for 3 weeks. If you get run down, you will radically increase your likelihood of illness, then all training is shot and you're starting over in a few weeks.
Scott is right. Sleep and rest are required to train. Without those two things, you are worth zero.
Were you at camp last year Scott, or did you ride with me prior to it? That's exactly what happened. What I thought was asthma, and all that coughing & crap (even when I wasn't climbing hills) was actually pneumonia. About 7 or 8 weeks of it. That *destroyed* my roadracing season, pretty much. Yeah, that was moronic of me.
So that's why I went to bed early-ish last night and slept late. Getting sufficient sleep is the second hardest thing involved in training well.
Jens would have ridden. You know that in your heart of hearts. How could a man who's got HTFU tattooed on his left nut go to bed without training?
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