shavasana

I'm not always sure which phase I'm in: build-up, back-off, full-out train, push, rest, recovery, or something else. they all blur.
as well, I often just ride, without making my ride fit into how I should be training.
perhaps in my next life I'll be better about that.
for now, I just love to ride, and I love to ride certain places, and I go where I want when I can fit it into my schedule. this time of year it's emigration canyon 8 times out of 10, and I like to think I get a pretty challenging workout from the ride. there are rises and dips, and steeper long lasting sections, and plenty stretches that can be worked hard either going up or going down. unless I'm facing a ferocious headwind on the way up I can usually make my round trip in 90 minutes, which is a reasonable amount of time to carve from my day and devote to physical, mental, and spiritual health.
an emigration canyon ride can fit in a few different categories: build-up, full-out train, and push all can happen during that ride. back-off and recovery need a more mellow route. and rest, well, that would be the route that doesn't include my bike.

I've been thinking a great deal about recovery lately. I seem to need more of it than I want to need. I don't want to need recovery at all. that doesn't mean I don't want to have any of it: I very literally mean that I don't want to need it. I want to be supergirl; I want to be wonder woman. I want to be indefatigable.
and woefully, I am not.

it's not just that I need a recovery ride every week, it's also the feeling that I needed a recovery period after my season. say, a month or so. I tend to focus on something and work, work, work, and probably push just a little bit too far. that's when burnout sets in, and recovery time lengthens. supergirl could just keep going; I can't.
and when I hit the wall, I fall into the despairing self-talk that tells me I'll never be able to do it again. I'll never be that strong, I'll never feel that good, I'll never have the energy to tackle everything I've tackled in the past.
thankfully I have finally learned that this phase doesn't last: the energy, vitality, and desire always return.

after some recovery.

this isn't just about biking.
all things that we devote ourselves to have the tendency to eat up more of us than we planned. and often the best way to rediscover the fire is to have a bit of respite, a taste or two of recovery.
my yoga classes end with a few minutes of shavasana: corpse pose. we are asked to still the body but more importantly, still the mind. the purpose is to harmonize our energy, to rejuvenate the body, mind, and spirit. it is a time when the intense practice of the prior 55 minutes is allowed to sink within and become a deeper part of our experience.

it's time for some tao of cycling shavasana.

for the past few months I've toyed with posting less often. if I cut back, would it be to 5 days a week? every other day? odd days? even days? every third day?
I've awaited inspiration, and it has yet to come.
but as of today, what I know is that I need some recovery.
my desire is to structure this, but since that concept hasn't yet revealed itself to me, I am letting myself flow into a recovery phase.
during the next week I will post when inspired, and not commit to posting at all.
so . . .
if you don't see anything new for a bit, know that I am in recovery, that I am resting in shavasana so that I can return fully awake, alive, energized, and in harmony.

namaste.