And now...

...back to your regularly scheduled programming.

At least that's how it feels after nearly a week off the bike. I had pain. I took rest days. I got tired. Very tired. And a little sick. Not like "diseased" sick, or poisoned with whatever hitchhiked back to my house from the elementary school... that subtle, fatiguing, slightly nauseous, achy sick that is just enough to keep you from going out and going hard.

It really puts things in perspective. How do you get to the point where you have to almost force yourself to do the things you love to do? What is it that causes the want/do-not-want decision switch to trip without our conscious intervention? Maybe it isn't really all that complicated. I tell myself that as I research my recent bout of inexplicable malaise on the internet. And then... it hits me like a ton of bricks.

Overtraining. I didn't even think of this until this morning. Looking back, I was getting depressed and apathetic, I didn't even want to go out.  Too many miles. Too much riding. Too much (finally) nice weather to sit at the house. And I was paying the price of having too much of a good thing.

So I sat around the house feeling ill... barely got on the bike for days except to run short errands to the store. It was getting pretty disgusting. Today had been long enough, and I was going to put a stop to this business.

It didn't start well. fixed two mechanicals and didn't get rolling until after 11am. That was almost enough to make me turn around and scrap the whole outing. I'm very happy that I did not do that. We picked up lunch from the store and headed for the Rattlesnake. I wanted to explore a little more up in Sawmill Gulch, and figured it gave us a nice set of loops, and we could ride as much or as little as we wanted and then call it a day.

We took the obligatory singletrack up to the Sawmill Gulch TH and then started up the road.

We thought it was a lovely day to up in the 'snake.
We weren't alone in thinking this.

Slash piles near the TH. The forest service has been busy recently.

Lovely singletrack on 24.5

A turn off onto the 24.8 trail had us crossing a broad grassy meadow, and then climbing towards a ridge. Some very high quality singletrack. We did the loop, coming back on the 24.5 trail, walked around a marshy bog with innumerable tire ruts in the mud, back to the TH for some lunch. We put in 1000 vertical by this point and a roast beast sandwich with a Red Hook made for a delightful break. Julian and I walked around in the woods for a few minutes, and then mounted up to finish our ride.

Back down the obligatory singletrack along Sawmill Gulch Rd. Yee-haw. And then the cutoff over to the main corridor.

Rattlesnake Creek is way up.

Cool Rocks.
I think that every time we go by here.

We started up Spring Gulch and took a left at the potties to head up Curry. And UP we went.

This is the last thing you want to see in the middle of a steep climb.

The obstacle.
It presents particular problems to our equipment.

The method.
Or, the headless mountain biker.

We get up to this junction and I'm starting to look at the time.
We've got about an hour to get home from here.

We make a left and start climbing some more pristine singletrack.
I'm sort of in love with the trails up in this area.

See what I mean?

It was around this point that I realized where we were. Climbing up to Grant Divide. The views started opening up of the Grant Creek drainage, which we have ridden up many times.

"Look, Julian! Grant Creek."

Looking out towards Snowbowl, Point Six, and Stuart Mountain.

I paused. Thinking briefly that it would be almost as fast to hook up with the Ravine Trail and take Grant Creek Rd. back into town as it would be to ride back down Sawmill. I'm not sure why we didn't do that. It would have been the perfect end to a perfect ride. We were under a serious time limit though. Have to be home by 3:30 when Rene gets home from school.

We opted to head for familiar territory.

I knew I was pretty burnt by this point when i caught myself musing
at some supposed mathematical coolness about '24.5'.

Thin line through the grass.

And back down that famous singletrack along Sawmill Gulch Rd... our third time on that bit of dirt for the day. Screaming out of Rattlesnake and back toward town, but with a couple diversions:

This is MUCH better than Rattlesnake Drive... and almost as fast.

A little creek crossing to get the toes wet.

Some deer happily munching on someone's front yard.

Julian likes deer.

In the end, we got home with just minutes to spare. Rene got home and I told him about our adventure, and he told me about his. Their class went on an ecological field trip up to Mount Jumbo saddle.

I am thankful for the opportunity to live in a place like this, and to have two wonderful children who are coming to really enjoy it as well.

Now I just need to keep things in balance. Today felt good. Maybe we will just chill out at the park tomorrow.

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25 miles, 2500 feet of climbing.
White lines contain area displayed on topo map.
(road ride to/from cropped out)