Toodle, doodle

Last night was another night of Nolan suffervals at the Hellyer velodrome. I had wanted to get some heart rate data, so I mounted the Garmin Edge on the track bike but left the heartrate strap sitting next to the bed when we left for Hellyer. Doh! So no heartrate data, though I suspect it would show a flat line at a high number, but the GPS track overlayed on Google Earth sure looks “nice”. I recorded the ‘official’ warmup and a couple of the exercises, but forget to hit the start button for another couple of pain-fests otherwise the red doodle would be even more solid.

After the session, and today, I am trying to figure out where the gas pedal was last night. Last week I was cooking, doing better than in the past. Last night I was fine through the warmup, then faded on the next couple of training drills. On an Australian pursuit I did fine through the first 8-10 laps, but then the team put the pedal down and I could not follow. I minimized the loss, staying within 10-15 meters of the team but could not reattach; just nothing left in the legs. I did recover a bit for the final 12-lap scratch race and stayed in contention until the last lap, but overall my goose was cooked last night.

So I am bewildered. I did easy rides on Sunday and Monday to be rested for the track. I ate what I thought was sufficient calories during the day. But was it enough? Did I need more calories while at the track? Am I still in the hole from the early season weight loss (wanted to drop 10 lbs, dropped 20 but have recovered back 5)? Are the allergies having an effect? Lots of questions, no answers at this time. I will need to try to determine what happened as next week the real fun begins: racing instead of training!