Trail Time, Confronting the Black Head-On

An "epic" ride at Stillwell for Batman and Robin today. Epic for me in the sense that it was the first time I'd voluntarily (not accidentally, see Feb. 20) confronted the gnarly Black course head-on, since the supposed SVTachycardia scare (or whatever it was) there in 06/07, or whenever it was. I have some medication that is supposed to control that, but no guarantees. Still the Cardio say my heart is "fine," the EKGs and Stress Test were good, he took me up to a good lather, and that worked out well, so back to the hard stuff.

That episode at Stillwell 3-5 years ago, and then while running that year, had shaken me to the core. And was it hard to get over that hurdle, mentally. Everytime I'd get close to a good 2 hour ride capability, the neck disks would go and I'd be back to square one.

Once you're out there on this circuit you're more or less committed to completing it, and there's no way of avoiding strenuous effort to get back home, and there are no shortcuts that I know of when you get deep in.

We've "trained" hard enough since February, so there ws reason to believe we'd be up the challenge, assuming we didn't get anymore lost than the last time. We cruised in at a relaxed pace and I took advantage of opportunities to coast. Soon, however, there was no let up. The switch just flips from approaching Normal moderate MTBing to maxxed-out with the first series of roller coaster sections, and it's all full-on from there.

Panic mode tried to set in as the HR went up to a solid pounding on the first hard climbs, breathing to full capacity, and as the ride became more committed into the chutes and steepest climbs. Definitely nervous at the point of no return. But that said, this trail had such great flow, it's hard not just flat out enjoy it. I could imagine with more familiarity of the momentum points, it could get easier.

The spin-it-up vertical, rooty, gravelly climbs really get the heart rate up and keep it pegged there. It felt like an hour but it was only about 31-39 minutes — maybe I lost some data somethere.

Mount Laurel wasn't as bad as I remembered, just a climb you need to pace yourself on.

The little plank bridge was a welcome landmark, but no water flowing in there right now.

Somehow, though, with all the other riders out there, and the fact that we were aceing some tough technical climbs and drops, it felt good. We may have missed one poorly marked side section, but not going to sweat that.

Gordy wanted some repeats on botched technical climbs, so that was another occasional rest. We also had 3 or 4 "mechanicals" — rear shock lost air twice. That lead to the chain being too slack in the steep climbs, the gears refused to hold their shift, resulting in a lot of cog/skipping/grinding fails. Gordo dropped his chain to the inside at least once. Some built in rest points to fix the problems. And a couple of stops with other passing or passed riders to shoot the breeze, also made for a relaxed ride.

Maybe we took it too easy, as we had plenty in the tank for a final sprint. The max speed recording function was way off (15.9), as we easily hit 16-20 for a while at the end. Big ring fun.

6.1 moving average is good for this place in my current state of fitness ... last week we were 5.3 in a somewhat less challenging section. Then again we had to skip the final technical 2-mile section, as the skipping gears were not going to work on those climbs.