Nice weather we're having.

It's a shame that I can't enjoy it on the bike. I started spinning indoors and I feel pretty good. Not enough yet to see my CTL rise though. Yesterday I pushed a little by riding Tempo for 20 minutes. Funny, the legs felt like Tempo and my Powertap said Tempo, but my heart raced above what I would consider my Threshold heart rate. If there's a good argument why training by heart rate alone makes little sense that was it. IOW, if you can normally ride a 40 K time trial at 280 Watts with a 170 HR one day, who cares if your HR is 180 another day if you can still ride a 40 K TT at 280 Watts. It would be silly of me to assume that I didn't lose power during the month off the bike, but it would be equally silly to assume that I can't sustain a harder effort simply because my heart flutters like a hummingbird's. It does what it must to provide enough oxygen to the muscles for the work to be done. It would seem to me that in the lack of a power meter, the good old fashioned Perceived Exertion is more accurate in determining training levels than measuring heart rate as the heart gets a little moody sometimes.

My injured leg looks a little atrophied and I'm going in for an EMG (nerve conduction) test on Thursday.

I can tell when I ride that them muscles ain't flexing properly even if they seem to work right. Hopefully there's no permanent damage as my motivation to train is very dependent on whether I believe I can improve or not. Though I envy them, I'm not like those who ride for the sheer pleasure of riding. The bicycle is a tool I use to improve myself and if there's no hope of reasonable improvement I may as well move on to a different hobby. I still have much to learn as an artist so there's always that option. Or, I could just ride for the art of it.