What I did today...

I've said it before... scumming kills MTB skills... but really, wow, today really showed how much.

This morning I rode an MTB (the trusty Yeti - let's eeeeease into this) for the first time since Jan 3. That's over 2 months! 69 days to be precise.

The time off was as a result of cracked rib (or fractured, or whatever) and some other dodgy stuff going on in the left arm. During that time I've been confined to road riding so have partaken in a little of said road biking and some skiing in Japan. Trying to keep in shape though, have been commuting regularly and doing the odd training ride on the road. There was a big chunk of time I was doing well over 200km every week. Thought that might be enough.

Then I went to Ourimbah today and was smashed after 3 laps. OK, so 2 of the laps were silly, 'up Demtel hill' laps and the 3rd was alone with Gazza and Steve01, but still - on this evidence MTB is waaaaaay harder than riding on the road. Oooh... controversial

On a serious note though - my arms were really feeling it! Waaay soft!

On the first lap I was thinking, "Holy cr@p - how close are these trees? How rough are these trails? This MTB lark - you can't take your eye of the course for a single second. This is crazy!" Those coming straight from the road must find this stuff a little bit tricky!

Anyhow - it's all good. After couple of laps got the mojo back a bit and that last lap with Gaz & Steve was really nice. FWIW, I was averaging 38-39min laps at the last Fat Tyre we did (Nov '08), and the last (3rd) lap with them today was 39:17. Should be pretty happy with that for a first ride back then? Maybe I shouldn't quite be so critical of fitness from the off time?

But really... scumming does kill MTB skills

P.S. Today's profile is here:

The new Edge 500 didn't auto-calibrate altitude properly. Hmmm