BONK?????

I had planned a major cycling holiday, but the fitness gods did not cooperate with me. There is precious little that will keep me from achieving my goal rides... a tornado watch, major lightning, any natural disaster, I guess... to name the first ones that come to mind. Sickness? Usually not.

I have ridden through many a cold without so much as a thought and looking back at last winters ride notes, I only had one cold last season and I didn't miss a watt of one workout... I cannot say the same for this off season. Already I have had a horrible cold/upper respiratory thing that lasted a month. I trained through it until I had to take a break... I slept for two solid days and woke up the second day as if I had never been sick.

This time was a little different. I entered this very important week of training with a CTL of 80.3 and had planned to make a major jump this week... maybe as much as 7 points based on the way the week was working out. I went out relatively easy on Tuesday... still got over 100 TSS points since I went for almost two hours... I had rides planned for Wednesday through Sunday. Instead a got the stomach flu and only got out of bed on Wednesday to run to the toilet and felt bad all day Thursday with horrible stomach cramps. I finally crawled out of my hole on Friday and cranked out an eye-popping 60 TSS ride. This was all I could muster...

Saturday and Sunday is where it gets interesting. Leslie ends up getting the virus on Friday night... even though I am finally feeling better, I see any chance of riding go out the window... I will be babysitting. I end up working out a time slot to ride (through a miracle- see later blog)... a 3-4 hour time slot if need be. I decide to do my typical TSS fest... I try to go at 90% FTP all day long... I end up see-sawing quite a bit but can always get 70-75 TSS points per hour doing this type of workout. Leslie gets better and I get a 3-4 hour time slot on Sunday, too... here is how the rides workout...

I cramped on both rides and after throughout the night (have not done that ever)... I bonked on both rides (have not done that in 3-4 years)... I could not put out FTP wattage on either ride for more than a minute or so... I ended both rides (and Fridays for that matter) at 0.75 intensity factor which basically means that I sucked. I have been working for 4-5 hours on long rides for the past two months and have been at an average intensity factor of 0.82 without bonking or getting dehydrated at all. I brought more food and more water with me on these past two rides than I ever have on those others. Obviously, my system has taken a hit from the virus, but when will I recover? What is actually going on from a biophysical standpoint?

Guess what else? I also skipped my FTP and sprint work last week... could it get worse? Yes, because of my 158 TSS effort on Saturday and 202 TSS effort Sunday, I salvaged a CTL of 80.3... I stayed right where I was coming in... and the Build Phase of my training plan kick in this coming week...

I will push ahead and try to hit 100 CTL by the end of the build phase (5 weeks)... that will require a steady diet of 4 CTL points per week from here on. I don't think I can do it without blowing up or getting a divorce, but we will see...