New PRs, and VO2max intervals, and needing a rest

After my backpacking trip I had a super sluggish week, as I indicated last week. Then I did my usual Sunday loop (Highway 9 - Skyline - Page Mill - Foothill home) after a week or so of recovering and turned in a new PR:

For reference the backpacking trip ended on Jun 20. I need to go back and see how much faster I was back in the day when I actually competed, but I think I'm getting within spitting distance of my all time PR. Which is pretty interesting since I am a decade older and about 17 pounds heavier (I raced at 138 lbs and I am now at 155, BF% around 10%). I am also certain I have a long way to go in terms of progress. Fundamentally I am much healthier now than I was back then, and you can get a lot faster when you are healthy.

Then I did what I've done a few times which is kind of ignore my active days in a row, so I racked up 17 days training without a day off and road like crap today - I've also been having some really frustrating abdominal pain (not hernia related, long story...) that flared up. I had also done VO2max intervals on Thursday (5 min at 250W) and I was maybe still feeling that. My plan was to ride up Hwy9 doing high-low cadence drills (seated at high cadence 3 minutes, then standing at low cadence 3 minutes).

But the abdominal pain was intense from all the standing work and the legs were lead anyways, so I hung out at the top of 9 for a bit enjoying the early morning peace and quiet, then cruised back home. Got back in time to see Sagan win a hectic stage 2 in the Tour.