dreadedmonkeygod . net

Yesterday I joined the Santa Monica Mountains Challenge: ride 30 of the best climbs in the Santa Monicas between June 1 and August 31. It's something fun put together by a local rider who uses Strava to track the participants and post results.

It's a common training mistake to ride too easy on the hard days and too hard on the easy days.

Jamie Smith, Chris Horner, Reading the Race

I haven't had my usual climbing speed lately. I'm consistently behind PR pace, often by two minutes or more. I think part of the problem is that I'm treating every ride as a fast training ride, and not letting my body recover fully. And I'm sure part of it is being 10 lbs. heavier than I was when I set most of my current PRs.

So, I'm going to use the SMMT challenge as an incentive to keep my easy rides easy and save my legs for the climbs that count. I'm going to aim for rides that take a week or so to recover from, and then let myself recover.

And I'm going to keep focusing on eating well. Last week's trial run making meals on Sunday to eat during the week went really well. I ate well, enjoyed the meals, had plenty of energy, and felt very little desire to snack in the afternoon. So I'm going to keep going with that. Last week I made zucchini bites, baked eggs, and banana rice porrige. This week it's bison & sweet potato two-bite pies and a variation on the baked eggs. We'll see how this goes.

Rosewood - Space Mountain Loop