Chill day up Hwy 9

Nothing too dramatic today, I had a somewhat rough week in terms of just feeling super fatigued, so I took it a bit easier today:

My time up Hwy 9 was about 2:30 slower than my time last week, but still my second fastest time in my own "modern era" of cycling (the time after my 5 years away from the sport from about 2010 - 2015). Not bad considering I felt sluggish and was not pushing that hard.

I decided part of my fatigue might be that I've been overdoing it on coffee lately (damn you Philz...), and running my adrenal system ragged. So I quit coffee about 4 days ago and switched to 1 cup of green tea in the morning. I have to say this has made me feel like absolute crap. I guess I was getting pretty dependent on coffee. So today I just lowered my expectations and enjoyed a few minutes relaxing at the top of the climb.

I'll go back to coffee after taking a few weeks off. Back when I did 24 hour races I would go off coffee for 2 weeks before a race so I could go back on it around midnight of the race, and get an extra boost out of it. Just like cycling supplements, I think it makes sense to cycle things like coffee which the body can adapt to.

BTW did you see this article in the NYT about the Nike shoes?
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/07/18/upshot/nike-vaporfly-shoe-strava.html
Interesting analysis using Strava data which suggests the Nike's really are faster. Great example of "big data".