Recovery and Just One More

Recovery

When you first start riding, it is customary to ride 3 or 4 times a week, as hard as you can each time. Then somebody who's been around the block a few times tells you to ride more often (duh) and tells you that to go fast, you have to go slow (whaaa?).

The basic idea actually is pretty intuitive; working hard does damage to your muscles, leaving bits of flotsam and jetsam floating around. To get the gunk out of your muscles, you use the muscles themselves as pumps... you ride very easy, and as your muscles contract, they push the poisonous floaters out of the interstitial fluid and your muscles can heal more easily. Better healing yields better muscles, which is good.

But nobody ever tells us how dreary recovery is. I enjoy the social aspect of slow laps around campus, but I much prefer the company of my friends when we're trying to destroy each other. When the weather's bad, I have to do a recovery ride indoors... ugh.

In trying to explain my distate for recovery rides to a friend, I asked him, "what is your favorite sport?". My anonymous friend's response is the inspiration for the following analogy:

Imagine that you're in a loving relationship with the perfect girl. The catch is that your relationship will only work if you also sleep with her hideous, boring, mildly-retarded sister. And when the weather's bad, you have to be sober for it. Don't worry, you only have to see the ugly step-sister on Monday nights, 'cause you've been racing all weekend.

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Just One More

Yesterday marked the final Tuesday night Devil Takes The Hindmost (aka Elimination, aka Miss-N-Out, aka some crazy name that Will came up with) sprint workout with the Hermes team. ProfessorAndy had the great idea of doing a series of Kierins (next Tuesday: the Madison! next Wednesday: the hospital!), in which he would act as the motorbike. Every two laps, he would ramp up the speed, then pull off the front to let the rest of us duke it out.

Jenks, being a damn good sprinter, won from the front, then from the middle, then from the back. He pretty much won at will. And was a complete tool about it. Yesterday I learned where the fine line is between confidence and hubris. It is under my good friend Jenks.

Sprinting with the group is so much better than sprinting alone. It's just so easy to soft-pedal the acceleration when you're by yourself, but when a gap opens in front of you there is no hiding from the truth. Ouch. I f'in buried myself to stay with the go-fast guys, but I think I held my own.

HardTailJay missed the first few sprints, but he was kind enough to join me in my second set, the Sunset Sprints on the desolate but well-lit road behind my apartment. "I dunno, Jay, I'm pretty burned from the Kierins... let's do 4 and see how I feel".

200m out. Coast, turn, coast, trackstand. 200m back. Lather, rinse, repeat. After 4, I said "just one more". After 5, I said "just one more". Jay laughed at me, but we got in 10 good efforts.

I was grateful for his presence, because we really pushed each other. It was unspoken, but it was there... neither of us wanted to lose. The efforts were brutal, and the sideways glances were subtle but telling. I'm surprised we didn't start bumping elbows.

At the bar last night, I informed Jay that I would be writing a post about him, called "Just One More".

"Oh?" he replied. "Is this about my drinking? 'Cause I do not have a drinking problem!"