I wasn’t too tired on Monday after Treasure Valley but I still took an easy bike day. I did spend a lot of time working in the yard. In addition to mowing the lawn, I dug around the fruit trees and manually tilled our garden patch in preparation to plant some tomatoes. So it wasn’t exactly a rest day but it was nice to be working outside in the warm weather.

Today when I woke up, I noticed that I wasn’t congested or phlegmy at all. It was funny because I didn’t think I was all that congested before, but until today, I had forgotten what “normal” felt like. I also thought it was odd since I thought mowing the lawn yesterday would make it worse! So I wanted to take advantage of how good I felt so I decided to do a long ride.

I did my favorite long ride — the Wilder/Payette/Emmett loop. It was a beautiful day with clear blue skies. When I headed out I took it easy to make sure I’d be fine for the whole distance. I wasn’t sure how recovered my body would be after the weekend racing. I had a headwind going west to Wilder and then a crosswind heading north to Payette, but once I headed south and east, it was mostly a tailwind. Feeling good I increased my tempo and kept the pressure on the pedals all the way home. The ride was 110 miles and I did it in 5:26. I think the wind definitely helped. The good news is that my average wattage for the last three hours was pretty good for that length of a ride. So I confirmed my long-term muscular endurance is good, now it’s time to focus on my top-end power.