Back in the saddle, literally

Week one of training is complete. The total ride time amounts to only thirteen hours. Almost six of those hours came yesterday. I traveled to Arkansas to take advantage of the warm weather and the big hills on Friday and Saturday. Saturday I covered one hundred miles finishing on Mount Magazine, the high point of Arkansas. It was my first century since last June and it felt surprisingly good. I was pretty whipped by the end of it, but in a good way. I will say that I suffered real bad up Magazine, but if you don't hurt yourself in training, how will you be able to do it on race day? There's not much else to say. I hit all the training goals for week one and expect to do so again this week. It's going to be a long, slow build, but with no racing for ten more weeks I can afford to bring my form along slowly. The plan is to make it past June without burning myself out this year. To that end I'm focusing on making sure I rest as hard as I train this year. By that I mean, I take my rest days seriously, plan them strategically in advance, and perhaps most importantly eliminating useless pedal strokes. That is, every pedal stroke serves a specific purpose. During the season, any pedal stroke without a purpose is simply wasted energy. That's it for now. Sorry that was a bit on the bland, generic blog side, but not too many interesting things went down on the cycling front this week. Hopefully I'll have something for you in the next couple days. Now get out there and ride your bike!