before it fades.....

so i'm doing my best to ride light, and keep the HR down ... this in an effort to ride in a 'recovery' type mode for at least 3-4 weeks. more than i am 'over-trained' (whatever-- i don't ride enough), i am UNDER-recovered. seems simple enough.

last weekend's ride time was specifically oriented towards: warming up, riding a light pace, not chasing anyone, not being chased by anyone, just out riding, slipping thru the sunlight ... most notably with a smile plastered to my face.

towards this end, ed's initial intent was to head off in one direction to do his 'big' high-mileage sprint. which was to leave me hours to go wander around all the single track and deeply wooded realms i could possibly fathom.

the ride started off normally enough ... although my intentions were to keep it mellow. i thought for sure ed would take off at the first climb.

sigh. somehow we ended up spending another day blazing through the woods, sneaking around tacky-wet corners, and flying our ponies all over buff creek. (woe-is-me;-))

until...
yeah. somehow, somewhere, we transcended the dry-colorado space and time and ended up in some freaky wet-zone where THOUSANDS (I'm dead serious) mushrooms were ... growing...... in colonies.

needless to say, we spent an hour gawking and taking pictures of this strange little world we stumbled upon.

so much for ed's big sprint day. he decided to ride w/ me instead (grin).

so there has to be something interesting to say about intention here... something about meaning to do one thing, and ending up doing another... something about everything coalescing into a state of perfection regardless.

we spent 35 miles and almost 4k of climbing pretty much chattin' it up, rollin' thru the woods, chasing the shadows of the chaotically clouded sky. and somehow, somehow... i managed to pull the highest heart rate reading i have on record? the mystery of it all is ... after mile 20, i started feeling really--really rather good. downright sassy no less.

so..............................................................
i obviously don't know how to keep that hr low (surprise?)

ed snapped a few shots ....











let's see, if i can recall, from the lower lot we hit: that burn climb up to the CT, down/up/down the CT to green mtn, up green mtn down green mtn, landed in mushroomland. hit the climb (ct?) back up to the green mtn loop, back to tramway, down tramway. down the dirt road. hit lower gas house. hit uppper gashouse. some ghosty track over to some road to some other road to a downhill road to skipper. accross-down-up skipps to that other road. up to monkey crossing (i mean charlies) to sandywash, to the extra sandywash to the car. yeeehaw.

















or, i suppose it could have been said this way: over the river and through the woods ....
LMAO.

i snapped a few shots....








and somehow our day of riding our own separate rides ended up being a meshed bliss of one mightily fine - fine day.


amen to that!