toasted myself

I'm resting.  Had to DNS Sunday, should have DNS'd the entire week last week.  After a TIRED weekend down in STL (best finish was a 4th in SS) I was looking for answers.  Two were possible, one was that I've done too much...  that the combination of life and training had equaled too much.  The other option was that I needed to buckle down harder, that maybe the flu shot had hurt me or something else?  

I rode every day and I tried to ride hard. I felt off, but I knew I had Friday to rest.  My legs just didn't come around.

It became clear I may as well not even be racing pretty quickly Saturday.  I had to quit, had to start reversing my mistake.

I refuse to use being a parent as an excuse.  Or the new house and the work that is going along with it.  Or the stress at work.  None of that is a reason to ride poorly, it's simply that I need to do a better job of analyzing where I am at and rest when that's what I need.  Looking back now I've been on the absolute ragged edge since late September.  I look at my diary and there were commutes at least once a week where I had a hard time getting home.  I needed a full stop.  I took some prior to the Filthy 50 since I had a 13 day window with no CX, but it's been far too long since then without real recovery.  At the same time I was riding less than I rode last year, or in the spring, or etc...  but the point is that is only half or a third of the equation.  I had it in my head that I could take a bunch of rest before the season and then push and push.  I had a schedule with built in breaks but then when the breaks came I didn't take them.  

Next year I will do a better job of balancing this stuff-  it's new to me not to sleep 10 hours on my 'off' training days.  It's new that I have to not to something else in order to find time to work on my bikes.  I'll adapt.

This week I'm not throwing my leg over a bike until Thursday or Friday.  Maybe then I'll hop on the Pugnago and just cruise around.  I'll race one day this weekend only if I start feeling great-  great like I haven't felt since Wednesday the week after Trek CXC.  Otherwise I'll be letting it roll all the way into Jinglecross.  I'll be ready for Jinglecross.