Chad Haga blog: Keeping up off the bike

At the beginning of the off-season, I was mentally burned out. I wasted a lot of time on Twitter, lacking the motivation to do more productive things. As I headed for my home stateside, I decided to truly maximize my time there, filling it with as much family and friends and home projects and other fun things I'd been missing as possible, and certainly not on Twitter.

I may have over-corrected a bit, and even if I'm exhausted, I have no regrets.

I always have trouble staying off my bikes during the off-season. I get impatient and can't pass up the perfect mountain-biking weather, so I do a couple of rides per week, and then start training again after a couple of weeks without ever losing much fitness. In 2018, I pushed myself to new heights, setting a new high score for race days in a year, and I was even more mentally drained than physically by the end of Tour of Guangxi.

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My coach asked if he would have to convince me to take 19 days off the bike.

"Why not just go for the full three weeks?" I countered.

I knew I could do it, too, because I was going to be thousands of miles away from my bike, which makes it much, much easier.

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