This is the sound of (soreness) settling

At long last I managed to get two good days of decent mountain biking in. I spent a good long while yesterday while climbing trying to remember the last time I'd done a long ride, and aside from vacation in early August I couldn't come up with anything. Shockingly horrific. I didn't even get in that much riding over the weekend (about 6.5 hours total; 50 miles), but it was way more than I had gotten in the past month of weekends.

In September I did a race that was around 23 miles, and other than that… our longest dirt miles were on vacation. We've had some long road rides, but it really isn't the same. 50 flat miles on the road can't compare to 28 in the dirt on mostly singletrack; not any day of the week. You can't substitute the general pain your body is in for 4.5 hours of not so easy riding. Foot pain, hand pain, wrist pain, neck pain, calf pain, and generally sore legs. It's nice to hurt again, and not from injury or medical maladies.

Next weekend should be more of the same with hopefully another 50 or so miles and another 6-7 hours of riding. Hopefully I'll be slightly less sore at the end of the big ride(s) in a week. Whatever pain I can get out of the way now will help me next month!

Aside from that, I'll be trying to get in 45-60 mins a day either on the road or on the trainer. Every little bit helps. I'm debating hitting the trainer up tonight since I'm having pinkie numbness in my left hand, and also I've had a sore hamstring off and on for a week or so, and it was fairly agitated yesterday. I figured 30 minutes of spinning might not be too bad either way, though.

Scabs are healing up nicely. I didn't have any pain while riding yesterday, except when branches scratched against them. There's two small spots left on my arm, and one small one left on my knee. Both are still irritated by clothing, but nothing too bad and the skin underneath has come back nicely. I've got a bunch of scar tissue over scar tissue on the elbow.

The knee still hurts to bend it most of the time, but I'm trying to slowly re-acquaint my body with having the knee bent again. I can't really functionally do yoga without being able to bend it for awhile without pain, and I don't think I could sit on my knees at all right now.

I hope to do a full set of core exercises tonight, though, either way.

Parting shots: