Training with Plague

Last week I got sick. I may have gotten it from riding 53 miles in the cold rain on the day of the Montauk Century but I figured a better explanation was that Fran gave it to me. Fran, a professed medical professional, said he got plague from Casey and proposed that this was Casey's strategy for how to finish ahead of us all at Eagleman. He still may finish ahead of us but the soon-to-be infamous plague gambit didn't work as well as he hoped.

I was getting progressively sicker as last week went on (coughing, being tired, drizzly nose, etc) culminating with going to bed at 8PM Thursday, calling in sick on Friday and waking up 1030AM on Friday still tired. While still in bed I called the doctor. I needed drugs or would be sick for a while. Friday afternoon I got hooked up by DrK.

Saturday I woke up with less plague and figured I'd give my scheduled workout a try. SisMB knocked off most (but not all) of the cobwebs off her bike and joined me for a few laps. While I cut it a bit short since the "tireds" were coming back, I still was able to do 37+ windy miles on the bike at Hecksher followed by a slow 30 minute transition run.

I took Sunday off. Not because of plague but because of I did do a brick of getting a sunburn while watching Courtney play soccer in a tournament followed by going to see "Night in the Museum 2." I'll make that trade most days as it was a good family day in the Rock Star house but I needed a planB as the 2.5hour L2 scheduled ride didn't happen.

I decided to ride with Long Island Tri Coach (LITC) as they had a "Memorial Day" ride of 40 or 60 miles. I can't remember the last time I rode with a large group of faster riders. Most of my training is either on my own, with a small number of Eagleteamers or with a large slow group. The LITC group was different as there were more than a few quick riders and a few that were frightenly fast (aka "strong"). I sort of kept up (fat guys and Long Island's north shore of rolling hills don't mix well), did 50 miles followed by a 2 mile transition run, and felt that I did OK overall. I wanted a little longer but figured this was good enough. The powertap said I did 187w avg/223w NP for the 50 miles and was done in a few seconds over 3 hours of riding.

BikeMike called me at night, commented that the ride was "stellar" and said I must be over plague.

The morals of this story:

- I think I need to find some more rides with faster groups as there was no way that I could have pushed myself that hard for that long alone.

- I'm over plague. I'm sure Casey is dreaming up another strategy.