Starting O-o-veeerrrr

Haven't written in a long time because, you know, who gives a shit?  Plus I haven't raced at all this year.

Only writing now for the same reason someone might write in a diary - just to see how I felt at a particular time in my personal history.

And that felt is pretty good, actually.

Approximately 8 months after treatment for Lyme's and low b12, and I'm (finally) feeling pretty good. I've strung together about 5 days in a row of pretty goodedness and that beats my recent record by about 4 days.

AND, that happens to coincide not coincidentally with having not ridden my bike in 15 days.  I felt pretty good back in the beginning of April too, but then relapsed and I've spent the last 4 months on a roller coaster of sorts. Was tested for lots of stuff, but so far haven't found out anything to explain the raft of neurological symptoms plus fatigue and constant muscle soreness.

Back in April, my sis-in-law (doctor and elite runner) suggested that I might be overtraining as I was coming back from the December bout with Lyme's. Only took four months for me to decide to now really test that theory. I do admit that there were many rides in the last few months where I knew I wasn't recovered and still went like hell. Plus the stress of selling an old and buying a new house and having two kids under age 5, etc...  But I wasn't riding nearly as much as others I know...but they weren't coming off stage 3 Lyme's either.

Well now 15 days off saddle and I'm really wondering if she was right.

And thanks to Strava, I can look back and see some pretty silly stuff in the past few months. Riding to the ride, riding like a bandit, then riding home. Fun, epic, dumb. Oh well, live and learn.

Strava is a double-edged sword for a competitive dude like me. Easy rides have too often turned into KOM attempts because I know the orange eye in the sky is tracking my every move, even as the fatigue demons lurked deep in the weaves of my quads.

[As an interesting (to me) aside, the fastest I've ever been on a bike, generally speaking, was when I only used Strava to track rides, and BEFORE the local Stravaites segmented out my local woods. And that was on my Niner One9, that noodly little bitch with the dodgy BB, and in a 32/18 because that was the only gearing where the BB would rub the warped BB shell enough to stay put.  I wasn't "training" then, was just trying to ride fast and have fun.]

So my new plan is to wait until I hit a full week of feeling close to 100% and then start riding again, and SLOWLY build, avoiding Strava and group hammerfests for a while.  That close to 100%edness is probably a ways off, but I definitely feel like I'm heading in the right direction.

It'll be just like starting over - starting o-o-veeerrrr.