The Recovery, stress, and trying to get back to normal

After the Boyne 24hr race it always takes me a little while before I start to feel good again.  After the race I didn't ride for 3-4 days, which looking back I wish I would have gotten on the bike a little bit, but with travel and such things this is what happened.  Once I got back on the bike it took me a few days before I started to feel good again, the first few rides back my legs always feel like lead weights, however once I worked all of this out I stated to feel again, about a week or so after the race.

The first week back I ended up going on a pretty long ride on the road bike,  and it happened to be earlier in the day and the moisture in the air was thick.  Below is a picture of one of the hills I was climbing, there is no rain, this is just the water hanging in the air, preventing any sweat from evaporating keeping my temperature a little on the high side.

The ride was great, however about 20 minutes after I got home it looked something like this:

Oh well!

After I started to feel good again, work started to kick in, with a presentation in Washington D.C. it was pretty much all work, and when I could play, it was shorter and more stressful than I would have liked.  Long story short, and I will spare the details of late night and weekend shifts, we put together an awesome presentation, which was well received by our audience.  This took an unexpected toll on me, and through this time when I did train it didn't feel very effective, and on some rides I felt just plain bad with flu like aches.  I skipped a few planned races, which was a great decision as I am sure I would have felt off and just would hae made me more crunched at work.  I learned that sometimes when your stress level is too high off the bike, trying to get on the bike just adds to the stress and becomes counterproductive.

With the presentation now over I am starting to feel normal again, and I am looking forward to racing at Putney, VT this upcoming weekend.  For now, I should get to bed and continue to catch up on lost sleep!