Fitness Through Rest

Did you know that you actually gain most of your fitness while resting?  As a girl who adores sleep and lounging around, I love that thought!  To be clear, you have to do that work first, but it's during the rest and recovery phase that your body absorbs the training and sees the biggest gains in fitness.  If I wasn't a believer in this before, I definitely am after this past week.  A couple of examples of my training during rest week....

THURSDAY:
Bike trainer - 0:45; 10.5 miles
Just easy with 1' 100rpm+ every 5'. This was the best my legs have felt in a while, and getting to 100rpm didn't seem like a major effort!

BRICK run - 24:27; 2.58 miles
BRICK! Oh how I love rest week....this felt AMAZING! I can't believe my pace for this low AHR. My legs are back!

SATURDAY:
"Long" bike ride -1:23:19; 21.22 miles
Got out and got this done early. Was a beautiful morning for riding, with only about a 6mph wind instead of the 25mph+ winds we've become accustomed to. Have definitely felt a great bump in fitness this week....was easily riding 17/18mph this morning in mid Zone 2 heart rate. Felt great!

So with that, rest week is in the books.  On to the next training block, which has me at about 12.5 hrs of training next week.  Bring it on!

- Her