Journey to Kona Day 158: Shut Up Legs, or Not

Any cycling aficionado knows Jens Voight and his mantra, "shut up legs."  My legs weren't too much in the listening mood today.  Knowing that I may not be able to ride as long as I'd like tomorrow, I decided to not only put some time on my bike today, but figured that I'd get a little intensity in as well.  I definitely tried, putting in some short hard efforts, but from the moment I started today my legs felt sluggish.  Sometimes when they feel this way they warm up and feel better.  Not today.  On one hand, this may be confirmation that my body sensed I needed a little more rest this week than my mind had planned, hence my rib injury (which is about 90% better, and had no effect on my cycling). It's actually not something that I've felt in awhile.  When I got to the final climb to my house at the end, I started as if I was going to go all out for 1 minute, but my legs screamed at me pretty quickly and I decided it wasn't worth the extra pain and suffering today.

It is interesting how the body can be overridden at times, but other times, it's just plain hard.  Today was one of those days, with a caveat.  I still had a good, solid ride with normalized power or 175 watts, which is pretty much where I've been for the past couple of months.  I never really rode easily and did nearly get in a two hour ride.  From a training perspective, that's fine for where I am and what I'm working on.

The concept of pushing beyond what your body perceives as limits can vary from pushing when you can't breath to pushing when you feel like you have no strength.  There's the feeling when you sense that your muscles are full of lactic acid.  On many occasions, I thrive on these feelings.  Just like I say that the only way to finish a 5K is to feel like I'm going to throw up.  There are occasions where the feeling is one of nearly passing out.  While many people, my wife being at the top of the list, think that this is crazy, it's part of the "joy" of having exercise and competition as a key part of ones life.

During my ride today, I did do some visualization of my bike and run coming up in two weeks in Santa Rosa.  I hope to be able to suffer big time during that race!