Sore

After a fairly normal, but quite windy, Giro Ride on Saturday I awoke early Sunday morning to find my legs feeling a bit sore.  It's hard to figure out sometimes why that happens.  After a particularly hard race or training ride I expect a little residual soreness the next day, at least ever since I started getting AARP solicitations in the mail.  Sometimes, though, there's just no obvious reason.  I thought that perhaps those sprints up the overpasses might have done a little damage, but at any rate it wasn't enough of a concern to keep me from the Sunday northshore ride.  I was planning on something a little different for this particular northshore ride since a few of the Tulane team riders were coming and we were going to tack on a lap of the road course they planned to use for the upcoming Green Wave Classic collegiate stage race.

The first clue that something might be amiss was that I was feeling a lot colder than I should have, considering the temperature.  It was in the low 50s with little prospect for much of an increase, but I left the full tights and extra arm covering on anyway.  From the start my legs were loading up on every hill, so I was riding very conservatively.  The plan was to stay with the regular training ride group for the first 40 miles or so, and then take a slightly shorter route back to Enon where the race would start.  Once there we could check out the parking situation at the school, talk with the shop owner where we may locate the finish line, and then head back north to do a lap of the course before riding the last twenty or so miles to the cars. I was expecting the total to be around 80 miles, which turned out to be pretty close to the 79.2 that Strava logged and the 80.something that my computer showed.

The group ride was pretty good, although I was sitting in a lot and just taking short pulls, still wondering why the hell my legs, and for that matter the rest of me, were feeling so lousy.  A little sunshine would have helped, but for the most part it was overcast all day.  By the time we got back to the cars everything was hurting.  My neck felt sore, my legs ached, and I had a dull headache.  I picked up an Americano before hitting the causeway for home, hoping that might put things back in order, but basically I was dragging arse the rest of the day and making animal noises every time I got up from the sofa.  Well, by evening I was starting to get a little sore throat and the pieces of the puzzle were coming together.  Yeah, I'm at home today with a little head cold that I'm just hoping won't turn into something worse.....