Old Lesson Learned the Hard Way
Learning old lessons is a lot harder than learning new ones.
This past Saturday I raced a local XC event at the Santa Barbara Bike Festival. The best training is racing, and since I’m signed up for the Red Bull Divide and Conquer next weekend in Durango, CO, I figured a strong three hour effort would be a good tune-up.
Old lessons learned the hard way...
The RBD&C is the one of hardest single days on a mountain bike imaginable. It’s about 10,000 feet of thin-air climbing from the Animas River to Purgatory. All uphill. Last year I vowed I would never do it again. But, our relay team this year has such a cool name, Team- Rocky Mountain Oysters, that I decided to prove I had some. Or at least the girl version.
So, this Santa Barbara race was for training. A beautiful training ride, because after all, Santa Barbara is what heaven would be like if heaven had ‘feng shui’ botanical gardens and some enforceable zoning codes.
A few women pros turned out for the race. I was riding at my own pace regardless of the competition…sticking to my training plan…staying in the zone…just shuffling along with my i-pod. I must have tranced a little too deep into my spherical cadence and metronomic heart rate, because as I was sliding out on an off-camber that I assumed was ‘on’ camber, I forgot to dab.
The Santa Barbara Women's clinic...
Road rash is bad. Everybody knows that. But trail trash can be worse. Even in beautiful Santa Barbara.
And everybody knows that you are supposed to unclick and put your foot down to catch your fall rather than slide through several layers of dermis.
So, the next day, Sunday, while I was conducting a mountain biking skills clinic for twenty roadies, I employed some audio-visuals. I pointed to the pizza slice sized blob of oozing epithelial jelly where my healthy kneecap had been previously and they said, “Ouch!”
“Girls, don’t let this happen to you.”
Saturday’s training effort, which was supposed to be good for my legs, obviously wasn’t. But, I really believe in recycling, so my scabrous squamous became the central theme of my skills clinic, “How to mountain bike safely.” Since, these roadie girls were fresh to the dirt, I hoped they wouldn’t also open some fresh wounds.
Maybe during the RBD&C my throbbing knee will distract me from the real pain that I’ll be in. The Jeep King of the Mountain race is on Sunday…the next day. All the way back here in California. I’ll be racing in that, too.
Hopefully I’ll be too exhausted to learn any more old lessons.
This past Saturday I raced a local XC event at the Santa Barbara Bike Festival. The best training is racing, and since I’m signed up for the Red Bull Divide and Conquer next weekend in Durango, CO, I figured a strong three hour effort would be a good tune-up.
Old lessons learned the hard way...
The RBD&C is the one of hardest single days on a mountain bike imaginable. It’s about 10,000 feet of thin-air climbing from the Animas River to Purgatory. All uphill. Last year I vowed I would never do it again. But, our relay team this year has such a cool name, Team- Rocky Mountain Oysters, that I decided to prove I had some. Or at least the girl version.
So, this Santa Barbara race was for training. A beautiful training ride, because after all, Santa Barbara is what heaven would be like if heaven had ‘feng shui’ botanical gardens and some enforceable zoning codes.
A few women pros turned out for the race. I was riding at my own pace regardless of the competition…sticking to my training plan…staying in the zone…just shuffling along with my i-pod. I must have tranced a little too deep into my spherical cadence and metronomic heart rate, because as I was sliding out on an off-camber that I assumed was ‘on’ camber, I forgot to dab.
The Santa Barbara Women's clinic...
Road rash is bad. Everybody knows that. But trail trash can be worse. Even in beautiful Santa Barbara.
And everybody knows that you are supposed to unclick and put your foot down to catch your fall rather than slide through several layers of dermis.
So, the next day, Sunday, while I was conducting a mountain biking skills clinic for twenty roadies, I employed some audio-visuals. I pointed to the pizza slice sized blob of oozing epithelial jelly where my healthy kneecap had been previously and they said, “Ouch!”
“Girls, don’t let this happen to you.”
Saturday’s training effort, which was supposed to be good for my legs, obviously wasn’t. But, I really believe in recycling, so my scabrous squamous became the central theme of my skills clinic, “How to mountain bike safely.” Since, these roadie girls were fresh to the dirt, I hoped they wouldn’t also open some fresh wounds.
Maybe during the RBD&C my throbbing knee will distract me from the real pain that I’ll be in. The Jeep King of the Mountain race is on Sunday…the next day. All the way back here in California. I’ll be racing in that, too.
Hopefully I’ll be too exhausted to learn any more old lessons.
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2 Comments:
What is it about Cancerians and learning the same lesson 84,000 times?
( I point not at you, Marla, but at myself via your experience.)
Thanks for the fabulous description of what was left of your kneecap. Talk about bragging rights -- you've GOT to be hitting some sort of injury record about now, no?
Happy early birthday, by the way. I always remember yours because it's right before mine.
Thanks for reminding us all we don't need to continue to learn the hard way; though, I, for one, do it anyway fairly often! [hehe]
Wish I knew how to post your RSS feed on my site, www.usmountainbiking.com. Great stuff!
You rock!
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