The weather was somewhat better this morning. The temperature was up about ten degrees to 29 degrees, but the wind was back. The real story of the day is my achilles. Riding in this morning, it was not feeling good at all and I was very happy to be at work finally.

The pain isn't especially bad, it's more of an uncomfortable ache, but I'm so familiar with that feel that it makes me worried. The odd thing about the achilles in this instance is that I feel little or no pain off the bike. That's very different from the problems I've had in the past from running. I would feel even the mildest discomfort walking around.

I did feel it some yesterday walking around, but it got better as the day went on to where I could barely feel it. Even after the ride this morning, I had no trouble walking barefooted and massaging the area wasn't painful at all. I decided that lowering my seat may help some, so I put it back to around the cyclocross height. I'd raised it just a week or so ago, which coincides fairly closely to the pain. Of course the racing also coincides.

Right now I'm so excited to be training and racing that it's very tough to think about time off. I feel as if I'm just getting started. But that's also the reason to be smart and take a rest. I am just getting started and I'd hate to miss big races later in the season. Camp is coming up from the 9-12 of March and then I've got 2 road races immedaiately following that I'm really looking forward to. I'll have to start with some Vitamin I and see what a few days off will do.

I rode to Vienna with Will, who met me down the trail a ways. We talked a bit about our various strategy ideas for the weekend, but mostly I just complained about my achilles. Lowering my seat helped quite a bit. I could still feel the ache, but I don't think there was nearly the stress there had been coming in this morning. I raised it a bit at a stop in the ride and I'm hoping I've found a happy medium. We'll see. This really isn't like my normal problems--I've caught it fairly soon. I'm still amazed that it doesn't hurt doing some of the normal day-to-day things. I'll drive in tomorrow to be safe and see how it responds.

Dist / Time / Avg / Max / Avg HR / Max HR / Odo
23.4 / 12:24:05 / 16.7 / 27.1 / 144 / 171 / 799
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Zone 1 / Zone 2 / Zone 3
32:31 / 31:39 / 19:55
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