Agony: The First Ride Back After A Hiatus

Mountain Biking Agony

Last night, I finally got the chance to get out and ride. I don’t get too much time off the bike these days. It really takes a catastrophic event to prevent spinning the pedals several times a week. Over the past couple of weeks, catastrophic events became the norm, so my bikes collected dust in the garage while I gazed out the window at what could be.

After the holidays, the redesign, icy conditions and subarctic temperatures in the southeast, the start finally aligned and I had my chance. I charged up the JetLite, the Garmin Edge 705, grabbed my cold weather gear and got ready to hit the trail. Finally, a chance to get out and rip up some singletrack and get in some light drops and jumps. Man…I needed it. I was ready…and it was not going to be wasted.

Joe (regularjoe on Flickr as you have seen his shots on Bike198) and I hit the trail to go catch up with some other friends of ours that had already started rolling. Out of the gate, everything felt fantastic. Bike was dialed…legs were powerful…rubber was gripping dry dirt…it was perfect. So perfect in fact…that I actually turned around and spoke the words…”you know…it is just fun to ride a bike”.

Then it happened. After spinning around in the cold, hitting drops and gully runs and thinking nothing could ruin this night of singletrack bliss…the bottom dropped out. My legs lost all power, my neck was killing me with a sharp pain and all hope was lost of finishing strong. It was almost a sharp instant from thinking nothing could go wrong to completely losing everything. This wasn’t a blowup of random cramps…this was agony with total loss of composure.

How Quickly You Can Fall Out Of Shape

As I limped my way back to the trailhead, all I could think about was a conversation Joe and I had earlier that night. It is really surprising how quickly you can fall out of shape and what it takes to get back into shape. You work all season long to perfect your riding looking for that perfect day in the sun. Just as everything comes to a head and you have the best ride you have had all season, the weather turns and it is time for the off season. On the northern hemisphere, the off-season also consists of holidays filled with bad (good tasting) food and general laziness. All of that hard work and dedication goes away in two weekends as you struggle to get back what was once yours.

You get out on that first ride back with the enthusiasm of a 5 year old at Christmas and hit the trail hard. While everything feels normal at first, things quickly turn as you realize that base you had built up over time is gone. Why does my neck hurt? Oh yeah…because the only thing it has had to hold up for two weeks is my head. Now…all of the sudden…my legs don’t want to drop the hammer because those sitting at a desk workouts didn’t quite pan out.

You come back to the end with enough excuses to write a book. The bike isn’t right…you had something bad to eat that day…you should have seen me last week, I was ripping it…is it colder than when we started…

But the truth…you are just out of shape.

The good news…you can get back into shape…it just takes pushing through the pain. If you really want to minimize the pain, you can keep things going throughout your off season with training methods (which I am exploring more into now) like spinning and working out.

Otherwise, you are just going to have the humbling experience that you are not nearly as fast as you remember…it happens to all of us at some point in time and it passes just like anything else. It is just hard to remember that as the trailhead is off in the distance and you can’t even remember your own name.

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