So I’m riding up 180 to climb snowbowl a couple times today after work, and who should come rolling up but Antol and Silverman. They promptly informed me that the wednesday night crits haven’t been happening this year, but there is an alternative tuesday night crit/circuit race going on, and they happened to be on their way to it.

Not being one to miss out on the fun, my plans immediately changed.

And as a result, my legs are SORE tonight. Which, in hindsight, is what I was going for anyways.

Mission accomplished. 7 laps of a little over a mile up in snowbowl ranch plus a few lead-outs and sprints at the end just to ensure that the pain was here to stay for a little while.

I mused with Antol on the way back about how you just can’t get the same sort of workout by yourself that you get in something like the crits or the saturday morning group rides. It just doesn’t seem to happen. There’s something about measuring up against someone, about the pack mentality, about the legs that are on the verge of cramping, and about the subtle taste of vomit in your mouth that just can’t be recreated while riding solo.

And all of those things happened to me tonight. I am pleased to say that I hung on until the very last lap of 7 in the ‘race’ when Silverman decided to give me the one-two punch with a couple hard attacks in a row. Realistically, he only needed the “one” part of that combo, as the moment I stood up to try and hang on to number two, my legs turned to mush and it was over before it even got off the ground.

Regardless, the workout intensity was there, and I’m ecstatic that it was, as I haven’t had a good high-intensity beating on the bike in a little while. Ok, maybe this weekend’s race was an OK start, but I learned tonight that I am not able to hang on nearly as well as I was last year. Apparently training for a long ride doesn’t do so much for that super-high-intensity ‘pop’. Oh well.

You can bet I’ll be out there next week (and probably as long as they keep doing them). But, I will say, getting those high intensity workouts in a situation like that is always a bit of a struggle for me, because I really do enjoy riding solo for most of my after-work rides. More often than not I don’t actively recruit riding partners for the majority of my endeavors. Now, that’s not to say that I don’t also enjoy riding with others, as I truly do, but it’s more of the act of seeking somebody out versus just grabbing my gear and going after work is a big part of the reason I get out so much during the week. I’m not sure if I don’t like to have to deal with the coordination, or if it’s just the best time for me to decompress from the work day. I think it’s probably a little of both.

I was actually telling Ada yesterday while we were out walking the dog that my rides provide a time for me to organize my thoughts and come up with a lot of ideas. Everything from the initial concept for HandlebarSandwich, to the Crazy 88, to the logo for this site, to plans for my next home improvement project, to the plans for my next bike, to organizing my finances, to what I’m having for dinner. It’s all fair game, and more than likely it’s all been through the wringer while I’ve been bombing down a trail somewhere or trying to puke up a lung climbing snowbowl.

It’s actually kinda interesting that I don’t really do much of that organizing and thinking while I’m at home, as there are always a million things going on. It’s almost like I need that distraction, that auto-pilot which comes from thousands of miles of riding to free my mind of the all the other things that are getting in the way.

Kinda like white noise. Occupy the physical so that the mental can do it’s thing.

Or maybe it’s like Ritalin.

Yeah, that’s probably more like it.

Seems like a much better solution to me. Although I’m not sure which is more expensive…..