Or "know[ing] when to fold’em."
Yesterday I committed a classic training mistake — not paying attention to the signals my body was sending and pushing through a 75 mile ride that included something like 9000 feet of climbing despite having a really off day. I knew it was going to be a bad day when I couldn’t maintain my normal climbing wattage on the very first hill, but it was still a bit chilly and I had woken up with a stuffy head, so I managed to talk myself into believing that as the temperature and my body warmed up, I’d pull through it and reach some level of normalcy. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, no matter how much I ate or drank. I could ride tempo, but anything even approaching threshold, let alone over it, was unattainable. By the time I finally admitted to myself that the situation wasn’t going to improve, it was too late to turn back, and I spent the next 30 miles staring fixedly at my front wheel, willing my legs to keep turning. Thankfully, the guys I was riding with stopped and waited for me every few miles, just to be sure I was still upright (which wasn’t a given towards the later stages of the ride).
On a normal day, it would have been a beautiful ride, up and down the Blue Ridge, with the foliage just a bit past peak brilliance. For the moments when I could get my head up and look around the scenery was breathtaking, or would have been had I any breath to spare.
It remains to be seen how big a hole I’ve dug myself; today was certainly a wash and tomorrow probably will be as well. And therein lies the danger– jeopardizing an extended period of training to complete a ride that for whatever reason, you’re just not up to.
And, yes, about the 60 mile mark, "The Gambler" did start running through my mind. The sign of a true bonk: you start humming Kenny Rogers’s songs.
