Today I went on a "recovery" ride after a tough 70-miler yesterday. I left the farm around 6pm, and traveled west, through farm country, towards the Delaware River. The landscape was picturesque, as the sun slowly approached the horizon over the gently rolling farmland. I spent a lot of time looking sideways at the corn stalks, now as tall as me on a bike, or the other various produce, now mostly fully mature. Looking sideways is a reliable way to hit a lot of potholes, but it's worth it, for the most part, minus the really jarring wheel-eating holes that threaten to blow a tire or send me to the ground, making short work of my shaved legs.

After a brief warm-up, I started to feel pretty good, so I pushed the pace a bit, especially on my return - also somewhat motivated by the fast approaching dusk. I was surprised how good I felt - my legs were spinning very smoothly, and before long, I found myself losing track of everything. I started experiencing those lapses in time, like when you are driving a long ways, and then suddenly you snap out of some distant place, only to wonder how you got to where you are, and how you managed to stay on the road and not end up in a ditch or plastered to a tree. Supposedly you are really just hypnotized, and the driving, or in this case pedaling, has just been relegated to some part of your subconscious, as you drift off into daydream land. But I wasn't just cruising along casually. At one point, I snapped out of it to realize I had just been out of the saddle, hammering up a curvy hill, and my heart rate was around 170, nearly my lactic acid threshold. This wasn't some lonely drive on a straight, flat road, for hours on end - this was me, pounding the pedals, working hard, and yet completely zoned out. It was rather odd, and while I pondered this, I slipped into my hypnotic state once again.



----------------
Now playing: Counting Crows - Anna Begins
via FoxyTunes