Teetering on the edge

One of the challenges of training is getting close to the edge, but not falling off. The human body has a strange negative feedback mechanism. Do too much physical work and you have problems sleeping, and you slow down, making you think you have to do more work to compensate. I've overtrained before, but this year I've been pretty good (so far) at walking up to that edge and not going over it. This weekend was pretty close to it for me; after riding ~5 hours in 105 degree weather with a bunch of climbs on Saturday and three times up Mt Diablo on Sunday, I'm due for some rest.