Another Weekend Down

Took a rest day today, since I was completely smoked at Patapsco yesterday. It was like alligators ate my legs after the first stream crossing...

Oh man, I got so frickin' lost. I dropped off the back of the group because they were going long, and I didn't have it in me to ride 3 hours of tempo, nor did I want them to hold up waiting for me. So I rode by myself for most of the time out there, which was cool. But I got lost three times. The first time was when I peeled off the group up near where the Connector Trail hits the Old Loop Trail. I took a right turn out on this long spur, and found myself, I think, on a pretty rugged part of what felt like Ridge Trail. It had a beech tree marked "COBB" but I don't know what that signified. Later on, I had some trouble getting down from the Glen Artney area. I did a couple hill repeats on Vineyard to get in some steady tempo work, then turned right at the top instead of going left toward Charcoal as we usually do. So I got lost on this little trail system up there, and pedaled up and down including some steep rocky little climbs, until I dropped onto Soapstone, which I recognized. Yay! Eventually I pedaled back to the other side and headed up Morning Choice. Then I got lost as hell. I found myself at one point in a field that looked like a field near Nacho - but it was a different field, further North near the other end of Landing road, apparently. Then I found myself on the Connector, and the Old Loop trail, looking for Cascade. I turned left a little too early, and after 45 minutes of wandering around aimlessly and retracing my circular steps, found myself near the big parking area on Landing Road, the end away from Montgomery Road. From there I booked it 5 minutes up the road back to my truck.

Now that sounds like bitching, but it's not. I find that to really get to know an area that I mountain bike in, I have to ride it alone, get lost, and find my own way out. It causes me to do three things, all of them good. The first is learning the lay of the land (duh). The second is discovering new trails that I wouldn't always ride with friends. I discovered some trails are totally different when ridden in a different direction - for instance Ridge is awesome and flowy if you ride it East-to-West. West-to-East, parts of it are a real bitch. The third thing is you have to draw on some mental strength to keep persevering onward. It sucks to have blown legs, and be exhausted, and lost, and running out of water. But if you can press on through the next time you have to press through like that doesn't seem as bad. So it was a mentally and physically tough ride for me, but a really good one that forced a bit more growth.

I also got to try out the re-worked Reba. I sent it away to PUSH Industries for a rebuild and revalving. I'll give a full review on that in a few weeks, but suffice to say, it is *so* radically different - *soooooo* much better - than a stock Reba that I had trouble riding on it for an hour or two until I got used to the plushness.

Today's rest day was in the schedule as an optional rest / 2 hours light spin. You gotta know when you're completely buried, and with a -36 showing as my Training Stress Balance this morning, it's not a shock that I felt awful. I ate like a pig yesterday and today. This too seems to be in the program. Carmichael talks about how much energy you expend and how you need to graze after the big days, and yes, my body has been crying out for food, particularly protein and complex carbs. With a 5.5 followed up by a 3.5, the body was telling me something. Even though I'm still losing some weight right now I'm looking forward to returning to a more normal training and eating regime...

The volume of training I've knocked out in the last week or so is stunning. I hadn't used WKO or the Powertap for months prior to starting the endurance block, so it's worth noting that I went from a 42 Chronic Training Load (CTL) to a 64 in less than two weeks. There's simply a massive amount of training volume in Carmichael's endurance block. If I've been doing VO2 work for 5-6 weeks, I find I can race passably at a CTL of 64, though 80 is my magic number. (You recover faster from hard efforts and hard workloads, the higher your CTL... this ain't brain surgery). After three more long rides this week it will be time to ratchet down for three or four days with rest and easy spins, then next Monday or Tuesday it will be time to start doing intensity work, and really paying attention to the diet.

I don't know if my back will be good enough to race cross this year. Still, I'll give it a go, get in decent riding shape and see what happens. If I can't race, then I'm going to try to roll the fitness and weight loss into next year's road season, come out reasonably strong pretty early, then ratchet back and do several of the MASS 4 hour races. That's Plan C though. I'd rather work through Plan A first.

Speaking of 'cross... I guess Dirty Low Down Bad is probably a good theme song for me. See you on the road.