I need to listen

This weekend was the big weekend of the season for me, Fort Ord road race, also known as NCNCA Districts Road Race. This was my A-race for the second half of the season. A 105mi road race of pain. I was realistic in my goals for this race. I was aiming for a top ten. My stretch goal was to win the race, but I'm still relatively new to the P1/2 field and bike racing in general. Hell, last year this race was first race as a Cat 4 (I just started racing in late April of 2007, Wente RR was my first race ever).
I've been training hard the past couple of weeks. My volume has ramped up a bit, going from 1.5hr rides during the week to 2hr rides. Plus the past four weekends have had some tough racing and rides. It started with the week of the 4th of July. I had a 19hr training week that week. The next weekend I travelled to Oregon and did Cascade Stage Race, an AWESOME! race. After that it was 15hr training week with two hard races (Sisquoc RR and SLO Crit). Sisquoc RR was crazy hard. My power numbers looked like something you would see from a crit, but it was for 4 hours! Then lastly there was last week, where I had the team ride on Saturday and another 4.5hr ride on Sunday.
However, the fun didn't stop there, I got to do hill repeats up Huddart this past Tuesday. I haven't done these all year so it was really tough. I actually haven't done too much VO2max work all year now that I think about it. After those hill repeats my legs and body where dead. I didn't think it was a big deal because the next day all I had to do was a two hour endurance (Zone 2) ride.
When I went out for my ride my legs were tired to the bone. My whole body was pretty tired. Still I pushed on and got my workout done. That night after my endurance ride I started to feel sick. Thursday when I woke up I was sick - NOOOO! I tried to tell myself I wasn't sick and it was just allergies, but it didn't work.
The silly thing is I was still thinking about going out and doing my workout for the day. Thankfully I slept instead. When I woke up Friday I was still really sick. This is when I realized I might not get to race on Saturday. My plan was to sleep all day, do a short recovery ride in the afternoon to spin out the legs, and see how I felt for Saturday's race.
I did as I planned, I slept, or at least tried to, most of the day, and went out for a short 30min recovery ride. Man, that recovery ride was tough. I had zero energy. I couldn't even drop some dude who was riding his hybrid commuter bike that was loaded up like a sherpas yak. There was no way I was racing on Saturday.
I was really bummed. This is one of the races I was looking forward to all year, and now I was stuck on sidelines. At least I learned a valuable lesson, I need to listen to my body, and I need to put more focus on rest and recovery. I almost have this OCD mentality when it comes to my training. I feel like if it's on my schedule I need to get done. Now I know if I'm feeling tired or fatigued I should just take it easy.
Listening to my body more often is one of my priorities for the rest of the season and in my training in general.

Installing Hutchinson Tubeless Tires

Here's a quick tip on installing tubeless tires. Use a CO2 cartridge to inflate the tire and to seat the bead after the tire is on the rim. Getting the tire to seat properly can be a pain in the ass. Also running a sponge with some dish soap around the bead of the tire can also help seat the the tire properly.