Double Down

Well I decided that since I took two rest days, that I would double down on my riding on Wed. I started with a freezing cold morning road ride up and over Mulholland to Encinal. There is a part of Encinal that you drop down about 1 mile at a speed of 45-50 mph! Once you get to the bottom I think my nipples fell off from the change in temperature! I climbed out of the canyon over to Decker and dropped back down into Westlake. My legs were really not firing like I hoped that they would be after two days off! I guess my race effort was a little much! That makes me happy though, thinking I gave all that I had! Recovery has been slow this week.
After work I was able to get out on the trail! My wife was working late so I jumped on the opportunity to ride late. I headed over to Los Robles Trail for some climb intensive laps. There is a 3.5 mile loop on this hill that has 500 ft. of elevation gain per lap. It reminds me a lot of some of the courses that I race with just a little shorter of a distance. Knowing that my climbing needs to improve, I fought with whether I could handle 3 or 4 laps in the hot sun. I also wanted to work on pacing myself with the 8 hour race coming up. The first lap was tough, I always want to go hard when I feel I have the energy, and then I blow-up needing a couple minutes of recovery. By the second lap I was doing a little better finding a pace, although it was a little slower than my brain wanted me to go. I finished the second lap about 30 seconds behind the first. Third lap was in the pain cave but I felt that I kept a steady pace for all of the climbing. That lap was about 30 seconds slower than number 2. I took two fun side laps on Rollercoaster for a little break after lap 3. This is a fun 1 mile descent that is like a rollercoaster if you hadn't put that together already. At that point I decided not to pedal back to the car but take one more lap through the loop! I had a couple rough spots on the climb but pushed through and rolled back to my car!
I had every intention of getting up at 5:20 this morning to catch the Amgen Road ride....yeah...didn't happen. Rough night of sleep and could not convince myself that riding would feel good! Took the dogs for a walk and climbed back in bed for an extra hour of sleep! I always feel a little bummed when I do that! I really wanted to ride...Could of, would of , should of!
Fast Friday tomorrow morning! Maybe a 15 minute Rockstore climb is in the air?
Peace
Lucas