Overdoing it

So, I’m sitting on the couch in the Q, eating strawberries and drinking beer. There’s a slightly bloody towel in the bathtub, and a bloody sock in my dirty clothes pile. I’m exhausted, and absolutely loving life.

Here’s the deal – A while back there was a Chris Carmichael (Of Lance Armstrong fame) article in Bicycling magazine. Carmichael suggested that breakthrough training could happen by an overload week. Or, at least that’s what I remember someone said sometime.

Plus, I’ve got not a whole lot going on outside of class, so I may as well beat the snot out of myself.

I’ve been swimming at lunch – but I talked about that yesterday.

Evenings – I rented a mountain bike from Sun’n’Spokes here in Sierra Vista. The first night, I rode up a canyon here on base – mostly jeep trail, but I did find some singletrack on the way down the canyon.

Tuesday and tonight, I went down to Brown Canyon. What a sweet ride. It starts with about two miles straight uphill, and then a GREAT downhill for about three miles. It’s similar to east coast trails – babies heads and roots, but different, cause there are FREAKIN’ MOUNTAINS!.

The climb is wicked tough. I cleared it the second time I tried, but barely. I was at 100% pretty much the entire way up.

The downhill – phenomenal. THere’s a sketchy section with lots of loose rock, but other than that, it’s good, do-able stunts, and a lot of good, smooth hardpack where I flew, baby. Flew.

Tuesday was awesome. Legs were fresh, and I knew the bike. The first lap was tricky, ’cause I’d never ridden it before (Go figure). The second lap – exactly why I ride.

This afternoon, I parked in a different spot to let me add a couple miles to the loop. As I was doing the climb up Ramsey Canyon road, I could feel that I didn’t have the ‘pop’ that I had on Tuesday. I didn’t walk as much as i did the first lap Tuesday, but I did walk some of the toughest stuff.

The downhill was good, but it was later in the day, so it was getting dark in the valley. Plus, I was tired. Anyway, on probably the toughest bit of the trail, I hesitated, locked up the front wheel, and did the proverbial endo (as in ‘end over end’) onto some rocks and tore up my knee. Helmet tested sat. Blood everywhere. I felt cool.

No permanent damage, and chicks dig scars, so I finished the ride down the canyon with no further problems. Exhausted, happy, and starving, I headed back to the Q for the aforementioned strawberries and beer.

Oh, and I found some pistachios, too.

Can’t wait to do it again tomorrow.