How Does That Make You Feel?

I use a few different ways to judge my current fitness level.

The first is the obvious one: my power numbers. I have all of my power numbers back to 2009 and I can easily compare my best power numbers for the last 30 days against numbers from any month since.

The second one is how well I recover from a ride. For example, yesterday I went on a 2:15 ride covering 42 miles, with an hour at a tempo pace (204 watts avg, 19.8 mph avg; not my best numbers, but they are gradually improving). I got home, my legs were a bit tired, but I didn't feel too awful.

Today I went out for a three hour ride. The hardest part about a ride that long is the discipline to keep your pace down. Let people pass me, don't chase down every group I see, take it easy up the hills. About an hour and a half into the ride, my legs were complaining a bit and I was really tender from being in the saddle so much, but I noticed something: neither sensation was getting any worse. They were annoying, but they were not becoming more painful.

My real goal for the day was to reach 50 miles. Instead, I rode 60 miles, for a total of 3 hours and 20 minutes. After a pretty hard yesterday, I was still able to exceed my goals for today.

I'm pretty happy about that.

My third consideration is how well I function for the rest of the day. If I do a hard ride and then I'm a blob on the couch the rest of the day, I know that I could not really handle the ride. If I'm functional and manage to, say, go grocery shopping, a little house work, and go for a walk later in the day, then I know that my body can actually handle the training efforts that I'm putting in.

I felt fine after yesterday's ride and I'm planning on going out today as well.