As you know, have had several personal issues here that have required my attention away from the bike, and my training and participation in events has been spottier than in years past. It's been tough to muster the motivation to have sufficient mental energy to train and ride the events I genuinely look forward to (AOMM, Death Ride, B2B, etc.). I've also had the letdown after having ridden the big events as well.

I've used that lull in interest to get on my mountain bike and enjoy the trails in our (common) area. Pisgah, Lake Norman State Park, etc. are great places to ride with a different focus. You can enjoy the trail, challenge yourself as you see fit with trails as technical or not. It's also a great bike handling skill builder, as you use different muscles, learn to stay up and balance at very low speed, muscle a bike heavier than we generally ride. No worries about average speeds, cadence, HR. I go with some friends and it becomes a social event without the usual measure of competitive "testosterone" invariably present at road events (no matter how hard we try, we ALWAYS get sucked in to some extent).