DMGRest Weekend
A big chunk of stress left my life on Friday. My girlfriend and I grilled up some excellent fish for dinner on Friday night, and I spent Saturday climbing with Timbo, who's back in town for a few days.
We both could roll through 10a climbs as long as they were vertical and didn't require rediculous highstepping. But 5.9 lips were impossible, and I have zero crimp strength any more.
I could have tested for my Krav Maga orange belt on Saturday, and got "the look" from Master Cox on Thursday night when I said that I wouldn't be testing. "Why not? You've been here forever!"
The reasons are complex, but the bottom line is that I didn't feel up to it. I pushed really hard last week, doing some kind of workout every night Monday through Thursday. By Thursday night I was having trouble sleeping, and I knew that overtraining and money stress had combined to leave me drained.
Krav testing is no joke. The yellow belt test was the hardest 3½ hours of my life, and the orange belt test just gets harder. Given how I felt on Thursday, I knew I'd gas hard in that third hour. I'll have another shot in a few months, and I'll plan and train properly and make sure I'm ready to rock.
On Sunday I did the local classic Rocky Peak / Chumash loop. I wanted something short and hard, and I got it. Up Santa Susana Pass Rd., then up Rocky Peak Rd. and down Chumash.
The lack of recovery time this week really showed. My PR on this is 1:42:09. I rolled in yesterday in just over 2:05:00. So I didn't even come close to setting records, but I had a great time anyway.
I picked that ride partly to return to the Chumash Trail. I crashed the last time I rode it, and that was over a month ago. So it was time to combine a quick training ride with a little dose of facing my fears.
The moment of truth snuck up on me. A big bump in the trail, a quick curve to the right, and I was on the rock garden. I hit the brakes, and rolled to a stop. This was where I'd crashed last time, and I was nervous. I took a few minutes to walk the section, thinking that assessing everything from the safety of terra firma would help put the line back in perspective. It's not a super-hard line, but if you miss it, it's unforgiving.
Satisfied that I could indeed ride it, I hiked back to the nearest flat section to get a rolling start, and again pulled up short at the top of the rock garden.
I've been in this state before while climbing. I knew I couldn't relax enough to ride the line safely, and the longer I thought about it, the worse my mental lock-up was going to get. So I walked the line, and hopped back on the bike to ride the rest of the trail, and had a great time.
I'll just have to spend some more time on the bike, and do some more bumpy, technical downhill to build up my confidence. A few things just didn't feel right yesterday: I hadn't been on the bike in two weeks, and I was feeling slow, stiff, and unstable, and my brakes were feeling nearly useless. All in my head, certainly, but still tough to shake.
I haven't figured out how to un-jam my brain when this happens. Maybe it's time to get back to lead climbing, and find out?
Anyway, yesterday's ride gave me what I really wanted: renewed enthusiasm. Today I'm itching to get off work and go ride down the Johnson Rd. But that'll have to wait for the weekend. Tonight I do what I failed to do last week: rest.
This week I up the protein intake to 100g/day and get to bed by 11pm every night. I started last night with a fantastic steak dinner and a solid night's sleep.